


Wings of Grace

by Skyesurfer12



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 07:46:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 226,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3888115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyesurfer12/pseuds/Skyesurfer12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1881, Kiowa County, Colorado. When outlaw John Casey stumbled upon a desolate farm smack dab in the middle of nowhere, he thought he’d find a quiet reprieve after the latest job went sour.  Maybe heal a gunshot wound to the shoulder and move on with his life.</p><p>What he found instead was a tall crazy kid, full of wild dreams and secrets, and utterly lost in the world.  It was the last thing he expected.  That, and a man who could reach into his dark side, where no one else could touch it.</p><p>When Casey walked out in the night, needing to get his life straight,  the kid thought the only thing he left was a family pocket watch.  But what Casey left was an unspoken promise to return his soul to the safe haven it had found.</p><p>Chuck waited, but he hadn’t come back.</p><p>Then the kid’s life was taken away by strange men on horses, and he knew it had something to do with the tall mysterious outlaw who left him.  Casey was the only man he had completely let inside him, and he’d never make that mistake again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> (Previously published under a different title in a different community. I'm gradually moving all of my work here in A03. If you have not previously read this, I hope you enjoy it.)

Chapter One

1881, Kiowa County, Colorado

The makeshift gloves, sewn from a pair of canvas pants that had to be scrapped, were his first mistake. His hands balanced between the knob of the brass blow torch and the copper spring in the other, which meant he had to use his teeth to pull the glove taut. That’s how it happened.

“Okay, slowly. Slowly. Don’t mess it up.” Without looking, he adjusted the disk that would control the flow of kerosene feeding the flame. He let his fingers turn the clamp – easy, keep it slow – while he moved the coil to rest between the claw toe of his pliers. The balance spring was almost pliable. Too pliable, and the center of oscillation would be off; the teeth jutting from the wheel wouldn’t move with the fixed precision he needed. Too stiff, and he wouldn’t be able to get the damn thing back in place, which would mean –

“Ow! Ow, ow, ow!” Clutching the end of his gloved finger, Chuck jumped out of the chair, nearly toppling the blow torch and the brass loop that held the coil. It was only by blind luck that he caught the marine chronometer when the table came up on two legs. 

“Dammit,” he hissed, trying to steady the device. Why did he think these gloves would work? The design made them way too thin for the temperature he had to maintain. 

He crossed the floor to a cabinet with a water basin sitting on the top. At least he had had the sense to fill it with water before lighting the torch. Having to crank on the hand pump with a singed finger was somewhere near the bottom of his list of pleasant ways to end the project tonight. So tugging off the glove and not looking at his finger, he plunged his hand into the basin. 

Jesus. Idiot.

Chuck closed his eyes and took a breath. It wasn’t that bad. Already the cool water soothed the skin over his knuckle. Maybe he could get by without a blister this time. 

The kid flexed his hand, his fingers, then trained his eyes on the shelf in front of his face and counted to ten. Now if he was home – and why in the world was he doing this to himself? – there would be a salve or a smelly ointment to be applied, because Ellie would know.

But here? He didn’t keep much on hand. Some dry goods lined up in glass canisters over the wood stove. A cloth bag of parsnips and potatoes. A bundle of wild mint that he wasn’t sure what to do with yet, but he took what he could. 

He pushed the thoughts out of his head with everything else. He wouldn’t need the salve, and besides, space was at a premium. To call the ground floor of his home compact would be generous. Only two rooms took up the first floor of the homestead, if he didn’t count the firewood crib that jutted out the back under a slanted roof. Which he didn’t. And within the first week, Chuck tore away at the wall separating what was his kitchen and parlor, making it one – compact but livable – space. 

It was still tight. Owing to the fact that he had shot above most of the population his first year in college, he could lift his hand just over his head and touch the wooden cross beams. But taking the wall down seemed to help make the tiny homestead practically airy and open. If he squinted hard enough, and tipped his head just right, it almost looked homey.

Chuck shook his head at the place his mind had wandered. Not exactly like home. The cramped kitchen in the farm house was as large as the reading nook in the Victorian on Back Bay, but Chuck wasn’t much of a cook anyway.

Sitting next to the fireplace, the worktable took up most of the floor, but he needed the room for things that were important. The tools he had managed to squirrel away in his pack before the Escape. Books that he had read over and over. A wooden box that held the bounty from his barters; brass nippers he had only needed to slightly modify, a decent iron hammer. A vise, pliers and even some nails that weren’t bent up too badly were among the treasures he socked away. 

Shrugging to himself, he swished his hand in the water and tested his fingers. Give it another minute. He slanted a look across the room to center his attention on something besides his hand and had to smile. The oddest item he had come to possess in a barter – the repair of Mrs. Winnie Hauser’s miniature bronze Perseus perched upon a timepiece as large as a silver dollar – was an upholstered settee. 

Chuck saw this as a triumph, since he wasn’t interested in keeping the naked god clock. 

But the settee? That he could use. Walnut-carved trim, curved arms, and better yet, long enough for even his lanky body to sprawl out. The worn sofa found a home in front of the river rock fireplace that took up most of one wall. Another lucky break was the kettle, left by the former occupants and hanging over the hearth. Sure, it had a crack in the iron, but the fissure was along the top, so why did it matter? It still worked. 

Enough stalling. Time to take account of the damage. Lowering his gaze, he focused on his hand, still immersed in the basin. He flexed his fingers, fisting and outstretching them. Okay, not too bad. The pain had lessened to a dull ache. Maybe he’d get some sleep tonight without his finger throbbing. 

Mustering up his courage, he lifted his hand out and held his finger under the meager light from the kerosene lamp. Red and puffy at the knuckle, but that was about it. God, why did he have to be such a klutz? He wiped his brow and picked up a clean cloth to dry his hand, turning back to survey the wreckage at the table. 

“Oh, hell.” Tossing the rag, Chuck lunged forward. “Get back, Buddy. Do you want to burn your tail off?” Though there was plenty he could spare, the kid decided. The fluffy white and gray behemoth of a feline simply gave him a bored look and went back to scattering the last of the tiny screws over the table top, the ones he happened to need in order reassemble the dial of the chronometer. 

Wait. Or was he trying to eat them instead?

“Stop, will you? I fed you.” He lifted the cat from the table and set him down gently on one of the chairs. “If one is missing, I know where I’m going, hmm?”

Great. Now he was a crazy man who talked to cats. Wasn’t that supposed to happen decades after one’s twenty-sixth birthday? 

Don’t. Why on earth would mulling that over tonight be a good idea? When he knew it would lead him the same way it always did. He’d end up in a dark place he didn’t want to broach tonight, falling asleep on the settee and waking up with a knot in his neck.

No, he didn’t need that distraction. There were still five rows of onions and cabbage that needed to be planted tomorrow, and after that a fence to repair. Not to mention replacing the arm of the coffee mill the Baudry’s were waiting for, and finally, the one object that he had zoomed in on, a brass sextant that came in a smooth wooden box with the request to ‘make it work’. He had to wonder, but it wasn’t his place to question where they came from or the story behind the curious mechanical objects. Like always, he packed away the artifacts with a promise they would be in working order within two weeks.

The sextant. It had to be a collimation error, but he couldn’t verify that until there was a clear night. Would the moon, or Polaris, be visible after dusk tomorrow?

Chuck forced himself not to start fiddling with it, and brought the lamp back to the table, pooling wavering light over the surface. With the coming of spring, carving its own footprints in the mud along last year’s vegetable garden, the days were getting longer, but little good that did him. By the time he finished his chores and made dinner, he still had to light the lamp, burning the precious kerosene to get him through the nightly tasks. 

Not that he was complaining. The nightly projects kept him sane. On these evenings, Chuck let a voice pull him out of the place he wandered between his old life and here. It was a time when demons rested.

Gathering up the loose screws, his fingers drifted over the arc of the chronograph – and he wanted to smack himself in the head. Why had he left that box at home – out of everything? The turned maple handles, the gauges, tools with the perfect weight and balance. Tonight, he needed to feel that familiar grip, turn it in his palm … and it was back at home.

She had to be remembering him tonight. She never forgot a birthday.

And he had to stop doing this. 

For one, how many times had he kicked himself for one more thing forgotten? That Night. The night of his escape. He closed his eyes, needing to shed the images. But of all times, tonight they clung to him like mud from the creek’s bank.

“Must you be here, cat?” Chuck plopped himself into the chair, forcing the fur ball to the floor. Perhaps it was the lighting, but he swore the animal managed to give him an indignant look. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I put you there, now shut up.”

He packed up the screws and lifted his hand to test the heat radiating from the cast iron cook stove. A few more logs under the grate before he went upstairs, and there was a slim chance he wouldn’t shiver all night. In a few months from now, it would be the suffocating heat that would keep him awake. 

Or thoughts that should not be there, tickling at his awareness. Because he was too busy have them. 

He started to climb out of the chair and put away the rest of tools for the night, but of course, when he did, the nickel-plated angel wings over the fireplace reminded him. Of all the stupid triggers, brain, it has to be that? 

Twisting the brass hammer in his hand, he swallowed down the pang of hurt. Twice, but it sat lodged in his throat. 

-x-

1880, Boston, Massachusetts

“Hurry up. He’s waiting.”

“I know, I know. Give me a minute. Where’s my –”

“Here.” Anticipating him in that uncanny way of hers, Ellie handed him the necktie. “Fix your collar first, though.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” Chuck drew closer to the burled walnut dresser and squinted at himself in the mirror. Though a perfectly fine ivory-handled comb lay on the marble slab top, a hand came up to flatten his hair, raking his fingers through the tousled curls. “God, I feel like a –”

“No, not that. I meant this.” Ellie also had a way of knowing how to make the points of the collar lay flat, so the kid huffed and subjected himself to his sister’s primping. When she was satisfied with the collar, Ellie glimpsed his reflection – and whatever she saw, it made her forehead wrinkled in a frown. “What’s wrong with you?”

Wrong? She couldn’t be that oblivious not to know that everything was wrong, from the surface of his skin to the pain burrowing deep. What the hell was he doing, giving in like this?

Chuck ran a hand over his stifling vest. “Nothing. It’s just – look at me. I look like a –”

“Handsome man on his twenty-fifth birthday.”

Chuck rolled his eyes at her in the reflection. “Well, part of that is right, anyway.”

“What?” She leaned around his shoulder to ensure he got an eyeful of her disdain at his own put-down. “You don’t see what I see.”

“Thanks, sis.”

“Hah. Funny.” Ellie tapped his shoulder, her touch gentle. “But it’s not because I’m your sister.” The smile in the mirror became dazzling. “It’s a big day. I’m proud of you – oh, wait.” She turned and walked to the bed, retrieving his black wool waistcoat draped over the bedspread. “Don’t forget this.”

Damn. He despised the close-fitting jacket, and if the morning heat was any indication, the day would be another unseasonably blistering day. Just another reason to fidget with his collar and sweat through his shirt. “Maybe he won’t notice,” Chuck mumbled at himself in the mirror.

“Really? Haven’t you heard dad say it a million times.” Her skirt, which normally dusted the carpets at the proper length, rose a few inches off the ground as she stood on toes to look him in the eyes. “Education and conversation begin a gentleman, but his outward appearance completes –”

“– his death through strangulation and heat stroke?” Chuck finished, begrudgingly taking the coat from her outstretched hand. It didn’t stop him from trying to roll up the sleeves, however.

Until Ellie swatted at his fingers and pushed the sleeves in their proper place. “You know he’ll make you roll them back down, so leave them alone.”

“Fine.” Resigning himself to his father’s will was not new. And there was no arguing with the man, which was the reason the kid was here and not in his lab or lecture halls in the first place. “It doesn’t change the fact that I don’t belong here.” He emphasized his point by deciding to stop at the second button – to hell with conformity. Even that little bit of rebellion helped. “I mean, no offense, El, but I didn’t want to say no to that – I was accepted! Advanced studies in the sciences. I should be back at Harvard. Not here.”

“A word of advice?” Ellie stood back to give him one more examination, and then made a point of meeting his eyes. “Get all of this out of your system before you get down those stairs. Dad expects his only son to be thrilled with the chance to follow in his footsteps. Besides, you have your degree. You’re an adult. Did you really think you could stay in that dank workshop and hide from –”

“Dank?” He put on a look of mock gall at the snub, though in reality, it did chafe a bit. His dank workshop was a second home. “That’s only because you think it smells funny.”

“Funny is not the word I would use to describe that odor.”

“And the degree is in business, and we both know that was dad’s choice.” Or order, depending on how you looked at it. But really, how did they get on this topic so quickly? His head already throbbed with the same ache he had all night, and now this? Hadn’t he already been reminded a million times that his bellyaching was unbecoming to a young man lucky enough to be born under a star of the new aristocracy?

Chuck heaved a breath. Lucky. Only in that it meant he could enjoy a comfortable existence while he buried himself in the – what was it? Oh. Right. The textile and shoe manufacturing business of his father’s holdings. 

Yeah. Lucky me.

When he looked up, he knew his insensitivity had struck a raw nerve. Sure enough, Ellie stood with her hands on her hips, giving him a look that reminded the kid of a time she wrestled him down in a headlock after he had taken apart her wooden graphoscope. He was nine at the time, and only wanted to see how it worked, but she didn’t quite see it that way. 

“I know this may not be your first choice, Charles,” she said, stepping forward, “but at least what you have –”

“Okay, okay.” He raised his hands in defense and gave her a blazing smile. The one that usually worked wonders. “You know, that was one of those times where the mouth is moving and I should be thinking – or at least the whole listening to myself part, which in retrospect –”

“That happens a lot.” Ellie tilted her head back to look at him, folded her arms over her chest. “Considering the circumstances.”

The regretful, no unjust and horrible, circumstances that Eleanor Faye Bartowski, whose analytical mind rivaled any he had encountered in his years of higher learning, was respectfully dissuaded from pursuing an objective so unseemly for a lady.

Her face told him she thought this was total horseshit, and he had to agree. 

The kid looked down as he slipped the chain of his pocket watch through a belt loop. “You should talk to him, El. I mean, maybe’s there’s a –”

“Here.” Her lips firmed in a way that told him to drop it, and reaching into the fold of her loosely fitted dress, she brought out a letter. “I was at the post yesterday and almost forgot to give this to you.”

His heart rate kicked up and a new sheen of sweat trickled under the constricting shirt. It had been a few months since he’d received a letter, but it could only be one person. And no way in hell would he open this with her watching.

Ellie gave him a questioning look and fluttered it in front of his face. “Chuck? The letter? From Atlanta. It has to be your roommate from school, right?”

Chuck blinked at the letter, repressing a blanch, and finally took it. As he swallowed past a lump, he prayed his voice wouldn’t break in front of her. “Uh, well, that would have to be … since I don’t really know anyone else –”

“Are you going to open it?” Ellie beamed a grin that barely showed any traces of the conversation a minute ago. “Maybe it’s news of a baby? What is his wife’s name again? I always –”

“Margaret.” The letter went straight into the inside pocket of his vest, as if it was something he would tear open later in private. He cleared his throat and turned away to look in the mirror. “Her name’s Margaret. Nice girl … from what Bryce said in his last letter.” A lie. He only knew that piece of news through an accidental meeting with another schoolmate. 

“I’m sure she is.” She eyed him in a way would keep him up at night for a week – because there is no way she knew – and nodded towards the doorway. “Here we are, wasting time, and didn’t I just say he’s waiting for you?”

“Sis. Just a second.” Chuck opened one of the top drawers of his dresser and pawed around until his hand felt the edge of it. “I have something here for you, too.”

“Really? What?”

He held up a thick book. “’The Household Medical Advisor’? Really, sis?” When she made a grab for it, he got on this toes and waved it over her head. “I found it under the elm out back where you like to read. Next to … mom’s peony garden. I have to say, it’s not like you to leave something like this lying around after dad –”

“Give me that!” She jumped, but considering he had a six inch height advantage, she could only slap at his wrist. “That’s mine. Hand it over, or – well, this.” Her eyes darkened with the devil, matched by the tenacity of her grip – and she went for the game-ender. The sensitive spot at his waist, right in the lower ribcage, got a good poke. Then another. 

“Ah!” Arms flailing, he clambered backwards until he felt his calf knock against the bed. “Not fair! Here. Take it.”

Before he could let go, she grabbed the hefty tome from his hand and quickly flipped it upside down. When nothing came out, she threw the hardcover on the bed and strolled in for the kill. “Hand it over.”

“What?” Chuck asked, though he was certain the mask of innocence screamed guilt. He wasn’t a good liar on his best day, and this day was not even close.

“Hand. It. Over.” She waggled her fingers impatiently, glaring, and it took all of his resolve not to wither under the look. “I know it was in there, and if you try to hide it, so help me, Charles Irving, I will –”

“Whoa. No violence necessary.” Chuck laughed a little hollowly, and waving her off, he went back into the drawer. “Was this the reason you went to the post yesterday? You really should be more careful – ah!”

A hand snapped out to take the letter. “You have no business taking this,” she said, eying him. “Did you read it?”

“El! The Harvard Annex?” Chuck darted a look towards the doorway, careful to keep his voice down. “You were accepted!"

“I guess that’s a yes to reading my mail,” Ellie said, her voice dry. 

“It’s what you wanted, right? I mean, I get why you’re not exactly shouting it from the rooftops, but you couldn’t tell me?” 

“A lot of good it would’ve done.” With one last glare of warning at her little brother, she stuffed the letter in her bodice. “Don’t you dare say –”

“Please. Give me a little credit here. I would never say anything about – okay, very funny, but don’t look at me like that.”

“Just … let me handle it.” Her shrewd hazel eyes shifted towards the hallway and back to him, demanding agreement. “Well?”

Chuck managed a reluctant nod, which was the only move that wouldn’t get him in another headlock.

“Good.” Ellie straightened his collar again since one of the points was now crooked, thanks to the scuffle over the book. “He’s still waiting, and I’m surprised he’s not up here dragging you down by now. Let’s go. Oh, and Chuck?”

At the sudden shift in her voice, he stopped fidgeting with the waist of his tweed trousers and looked up. “Yeah?”

“Whatever is eating away at you, try to get that look off your face by the time we get down there, hmm?” Ellie turned to leave, but before she left, she paused at the doorway and studied him. “And no matter what he says, we’re both proud of you today.”

Proud, my ass. Chuck never measured up to that yardstick in more ways than he would ever let on. But, in reality, who could? 

Since he was at a loss of words for once, he shrugged and gave her a tired smile. That was real at least, owing to the simple reason that he didn’t sleep much last night. 

Ellie nodded and disappeared around the corner.

When she was out of sight, Chuck fished the envelope from his pocket and held it up, then flipped it over to the back and examined every mark. 

A letter. Another fucking letter. Like hell can he do this and think it’s okay. 

Sweeping his thumb over the ink, over the loops of the recognizable handwriting, his breath picked up. The throbbing that had danced over his forehead in anticipation of today slid into a place still bruised. 

Did he seriously think that sending a letter – four now, since Chuck was keeping track – would fix it? Damn him. 

He was too wired to think about it right now. 

But one thing for certain, he could not carry it around all day in his waistcoat, making the paper burn a hole in his pocket. 

Enough. He approached the mantle over the fireplace, brown eyes fixed on the box. The nickel-plated angel wings on the front of it flipped up at a touch of his thumb, and he slid the letter inside with the others. 

There. Done.

It was the simplest thing in the world to hide. And the most crushingly difficult.

-x-

1881, Kiowa County, Colorado

He kept telling himself he couldn’t get lost like this. This wasn’t supposed to happen anymore, now that he was safely stashed between the low hills, a thousand and more miles away. So instead of jelly cakes or fried cakes from the oven this year, there was an apple from the root cellar, hollowed out and slathered with butter and sugar. It was no big deal … and why did he keep doing this to himself?

His stomach now rumbling, Chuck decided maybe it was time finish putting the tools together and go to bed. 

He climbed up from the chair too quickly, cracking his knee on the table. “Ow. Sorry, Buddy,” Chuck added as the cat jolted at the noise. As if fed up with his antics, the feline slinked through the low opening to the firewood crib. “That wasn’t my entire fault, you know,” he mumbled after the animal. 

Was he talking to the cat again? Jesus, he needed to get into town more often. Maybe next week he could work an extra trip into his schedule. If he could squeeze it in between … well, everything else.

Rubbing his knee, he then gathered up the last of the tools, tucking the box at the corner of the worktable. Habit made him rinse the one dish from dinner, still sitting next to the basin, and put it back on the shelf. He wiped his hands on his pants and faced the fireplace. A stab or two with the brass poker spread the rest of the ashes, and he let his gaze shift up. 

Into the angel wings.

Well, now that he was standing there, he thought it would be prudent to at least check the box. Make sure they were all still there, and that nobody had moved them. Forget that not a single soul besides himself had actually been to the farmstead since he checked last. Odder things have happened. 

When he scooped up the contents, a small stack of letters fell away into his palm. A little yellowed, the Letters to Ellie were on top. He was careful to write her every month. Of course, the sheets of parchment were folded into an envelope and slipped into the box, never going further. It still mattered, and they were all he had for her.

Beneath that lay the other letters, the ones he should not look at.

-x-

1879, Boston, Massachusetts

“Give me my shirt back. I need it.”

“No I think I like it,” he replied, and with his mouth crooked up into a smile, he shrugged it on. “See? It fits.” 

Chuck slanted him a look. The sleeves hung past his wrists and the crisp white cotton stretched taut at the shoulders. It was unbuttoned, revealing a path of hard pale skin between the plackets. His eyes traveled up, back down, and blushing at his own stupidity, his gaze cut over the grassy bank to the inky water of the Charles. 

“Like hell it does,” the kid mumbled, stretching his legs. Was he insane? Because truthfully, yes, he expected the night he graduated that there would be a few hours to let down his guard, that there would be booze involved – and Bryce had supplied two bottles of bourbon, assuring him it was the good stuff – but leaving the Bell to get night air and ending up here? Sipping Old Crow from a bottle and lying on the grass in River Bend park? It felt reckless, and his father wouldn’t approve. So he leaned back on his elbows and settled in, watching the water with his friend sprawled out next to him. 

Time became blurry, his head swimming pleasantly. At first, he welcomed it. Like gradually loosening the lid from a tightly sealed container where everything was held neatly. Chuck had unbuttoned his shirt half-way down to feel the cool air on his skin while they talked about important nothingness. Later, it was unreal when Bryce’s fingers found the rest, quickly finished it for him. Startling him with warm knuckles that ran down his chest and forced the kid to suck in a breath when they got to the bottom. 

Then the world went from insane to tilt when Bryce took the shirt off his back.

“Do you have to be a jerk about this? Our last night here?” Chuck forced himself to sound aloof, though his heartbeat had reared up like a colt. “What the hell are you thinking, anyway?” After two years, when they both knew it filled their room to the darkest corners, safely hidden, Bryce had pretended not to really see him. But now of all times? 

The bottle landed in the grass and Bryce sat up, shifted on his knees, making himself taller than Chuck for once. Under an undeniably intimidating stare, his hand slipped around the back of Chuck’s neck, and for a reason that made the kid’s mind slam to a halt, he felt warm fingers threading through loose curls at his nape. 

“Yeah, last night …,” Bryce said, playing with a lock around his thumb. “So I was … thinking … of this.” 

The kid froze. This was not when he should be noticing the tip of Bryce’s tongue, resting on his bottom lip. This was not when he should tip his head up, part his lips to let him … kiss. But Bryce moved in, leaned over him, his hair brushing Chuck’s temple. One hand came up to his jaw, holding him steady, passing a thumb over the kid’s lips. So close. 

“Wh-what?” Chuck mumbled against the pad of his thumb, trying not to cringe at how idiotic that sounded.

Bryce didn’t reply. Only when the kid stilled, staring at him, did he brush his lips over Chuck’s mouth, straying to the corners, tracing him with his tongue. Then there was a delicious shiver running through Chuck’s body, a ripple of response that was wrong. One that drew tight and low in his belly and Bryce could not feel this, could not know.

It’s just a game, isn’t it?

“You’re trembling,” he heard, lips pressed to his throat just below his ear, then across his cheek bone. “I feel it. You can’t hide that too, Chuck.” Sliding an arm around his middle, Bryce circled his back and held him. “And you don’t want to look at me.”

It was then he realized he had squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to go there, every muscle rigid. Tuned into every touch, every brush of his lips. “I – you took my shirt, that’s why I – and it really wasn’t that, and I just –”

“Open your eyes, will you?”

The kid inhaled and turned his head up to his, ice blue making him dizzy. “Bryce.”

In answer, Bryce’s fingers trailed down his arm, and Chuck told himself not to move. The heated palm smoothed over his forearm, back to his bicep, then up. When the other man fisted a hand in his hair and kissed him hard, tongue begging at the door, then sweeping in to claim him, that was all he could do. Chuck responded, parting his lips, matching the pressure to his mouth, raw and clumsy, too hot. He felt his hands in the grass, fingers curled, and holding onto the ground. Anchoring himself to something real, in the moment of being caught between the rapture of Heaven and precipice of Hell. 

“Let me,” Bryce murmured against the corner of his mouth, hooking a hand on his pants. “Can you let me?”

 

Ellie’s voice. “He’s a nice boy, isn’t he Chuck?”

Nice. Like any nice boy. One who would share a bottle of bourbon on the bank of the river at the witch’s hour. One who would fumble for buttons, pull at his trousers with a grunt, burning supplications to his ear. Kiss him in a way that sent his mind churning, eddied like the inky black waves of water on the bank. A friend who told him it would be okay. 

In the end, he found himself pinned full length under Bryce’s hard chest, a straight line of muscle over him. He had no clue what he was doing, but Bryce seemed to know. Where his hand should linger, close in around him. Feed him soft, rumbly words against the sweat at his temple, encouragement threaded with lust and strong fingers in his hair. 

After he got his pants off, Bryce gripped his hips, steadying him even as the searing touch set him off, rocketing him off balance. A hand ran over his ass, and taking hold of the right butt cheek, Bryce squeezed hard, fingers grazing his crack. Kissing his back, along his spine, and Chuck felt himself shake at the overwhelming flood of response in his gut, his chest. Lower.

Oh, God. He did it all wrong, he knew, but when Bryce gave a sexy low laugh and made the world blur, it was so fucking good and control was lost. There was bare flesh to his, penetration and burning and pleasure ….hot breath on the back of his neck, wanting to be consumed by him and not caring….

The ache in his ribs drew tighter. In his nastier, more insecure moments, he wondered why he was chosen to hurt when Bryce could have anyone.

-x-

At an hour when he needed to be packed and meeting the transport wagon, a shovel’s blade was lodged between his eyes. At least, that’s what it felt like, or he guessed as much, considering he had never been unlucky enough to die in such spectacularly excruciating way. 

Well, until now.

The bourbon was a mistake. But the act with Bryce Larkin could only be categorized with the Great Chicago Fire on the scale of colossal misjudgment. And no matter how fuzzy the images were, now that he was in bed staring up at the ceiling, the peculiar aches deep within his body and a bite mark on his chest told him it wasn’t just the booze playing tricks with his mind. It did happen last night.

His roommate. He couldn’t think of what to say, or how to answer when he asked. Hell, how would he ever face him again?

It took about two minutes, stumbling over his shoes in the process, to realize that would never be a problem. Because when Chuck climbed out of bed, scratching the back of his head and searching for a clean shirt, he found the note instead.

A note. Telling him that Bryce was already on a train back to Atlanta. The ticket had been arranged by his father, who was eager to have him home and join the partners at his accounting firm. The city’s economy was still bounding and rebuilding after the unfortunate dispute between the states, and it seemed his father needed him. 

Chuck’s eyes skimmed the neatly formed words, written with the eloquence of a gentleman and not a lover. When he reached the last line, he screwed his eyes shut and felt a rough scrape in his throat.

‘… the time in our lives to put schooling behind us, our mistakes behind us, and find a place in life .…’

It was mistake. Buried between the lines, he told him the brutal truth. Chuck was a mistake.

The kid barely remembered where he had left his trousers when there was a knock at the door. His father’s wagon was downstairs to retrieve his belongings, he was told. Was he ready? Chuck could feel sweat dribbling down his back, and wished he hadn’t packed all of his decent shirts. Yes, he would be right down.

With the ghosts of anger and regret circling the closed-in room, he dragged a hand through his hair, looked around one last time, began helping with the bags. 

Then the letters, every month or so, began to arrive. Reminders of a night’s indiscretion. A mistake. 

He was proud of himself for one thing at least. To this day, he never opened even one of them.

-x-

1881, Kiowa County, Colorado

Chuck tucked the letters back into the box, careful not to crease the ones to Ellie. Only when he moved towards the table to extinguish the kerosene lamp did he tilt his head in the direction of the window –

– and freeze in his steps. 

He started to question his sanity, but with goose bumps rippling over his neck, the kid immediately became aware of three things.

For one, though not the most pressing, he still hated Bryce Larkin. Even now, he had managed to put a burn in his gut, months after he had made him get on his knees with his bare ass up, grazing his lips along the skin of his lower back, his thighs ….

God, now is not the time.

The second thing he noticed, drowned out by his swirling thoughts until this moment, was that the spring storm darkening the sky over the foot hills when he came in from the barn was on his doorstep. The windowpanes rattled in their frames, and roaming the sky uneasily, the wind whipped through the chinks of the chimney, down the flue. Glowing coals sent a billow of dust over the hearth.

But nothing was more disconcerting than this. Through the tumult of the storm, as it curled and tightened its hold around his house, he heard a sound that was unmistakable. Something like the sound of a man’s boot heel crossing the porch. 

Wait. Get a hold of yourself. It had to be just a crazy piece of his imagination at work. 

His stomach bottomed out when he heard it again.

“Oh, God,” Chuck whispered, pushed his hand through his hair. The letter was shoved back into the box without taking his eyes from the door. “No, no, no … gun … where, where. Crap!” As he scrambled towards the back door, he came a gnat’s hair away from knocking his head on the carved stock of the shot gun, since the 12 gauge hung on a metal peg over the doorway. 

Which made it handy for the occasional unlucky rabbit or squirrel that he had the blind luck to pluck off from time to time –  
But not a man, for God sakes! What the hell does he think he’s doing? He should just put the gun down and call out to the stranger. No, hang on to the gun – just don’t … well, try to shoot it or anything. 

Okay. Chuck let out a slow breath and clenched his fingers over the cool metal, once, twice. One hand slid along the muzzle while his finger found the bolt handle. Another found the trigger. It’s just a big squirrel. That’s it. Brown and cute and hungry.  
Another sharp clack and the hair on his neck prickled with dread.

Shit.

“Uh, hello?” He could feel every drop of saliva dry up in his mouth. Swallowing hard, he tried again. “Is someone there?” Thanks to his heartbeat pounding in his eardrums, Chuck heard nothing, so maybe it was his imagination after all. 

Something wrapped around his leg, soft and insistent, making the kid jump out of his skin. When he looked down, he had to roll his eyes. “Dammit, Buddy. You scared the – get out of here, okay. Geez.” Lowering the gun a smidgen, Chuck gave the cat a gentle shove with his foot. “C’mon, guy, I’m –”

And just like that, the door burst in on its hinges, yawning wide as wolf fangs.

With a man the size of a bear pointing a gun dead set at his head. 

Chuck blinked, unable to rationalize what he was seeing. Not a squirrel, his mind fed him stupidly. A stranger. A gun.  
Reflexively, his finger jerked, pulling the trigger before his brain gave it permission. The kid fell backwards at the sound of an explosion and dropped the gun, trying not to wince.

“I – stop!” he blurted, barely distinguishing his own voice. “Please don’t.”

The man didn’t listen. Instead, the Colt 45 at his head twitched and leveled off. Another ringing blast and the kid felt the back of his scull split, pain hurtling in a ring around his head. 

Why, God?

The last thing he remembered was the sharp stench of gunpowder, an odd patch of crimson blossoming on the man’s shirt, and a faded brown coat.

Beyond that, black engulfed the kid, dragging him under with its suffocating grip of oblivion. 

 

-x End Wings of Grace Chapter One End-x-


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

1881, Kiowa County, Colorado

The jagged indentation along his skin, found when he ran his fingers around the back of his bicep, told him he was at any rate lucky this time. The bullet had passed through the meat of his arm and out the other side, which meant he could skip the part where they dig it out with an instrument of the devil, and go straight to the sewing. 

Yeah. Luck. 

Unbuttoning his shirt with one hand, he shrugged it past the shoulder, down his arm – slow, slow, ah sonovabitch – and finally worked it off. Despite the shot of pain, he balled it up and tossed it in the small creek at his feet, and after a splash, he heard only the soft pattering of water and rocks. With any more luck, the current would carry it miles downstream before daylight.

It joined the waistcoat, the bowler hat, and finally the cinched up vest that belonged to a bean pole of a man. 

God, never again.

John Casey sucked in a harsh breath as he sat up, mostly for being a goddamn fool. Grimacing at the crimson smear on his hand, he reflexively splayed his fingers, turning his wrist side to side to get a good look. A fresh layer of blood coated the dried up one from an hour ago. But now was not the time to think about how much he had lost. He took another deep breath and lowered his upper arm over the shallow creek, scooping a cupped palm of water, letting it trickle down his bicep. The water turned pink as it rolled over his skin, no matter how many times he brought up a palm full. Someone else who really wanted him dead would be pleased by this. 

He dared to chuckle to himself, in spite of the shoulder. Too fucking bad. Not tonight. 

One last splash down his arm, then washing the flow of blood from his bare chest, Casey leaned back on his uninjured arm. That was as good as he could hope for without staunching the wound.

His shoulders stiffened at the jolt of agony, every part of him aching as he scooted back up the bank and into the low grass. Maybe he was getting too old for this shit, but that was something else not to think about until he was far from here.

“Vic,” he whispered sharply and tipped his ear to listen. Nothing. After a second or two, he slanted his eyes to the side, gave a low whistle between his teeth. “Vic.” He watched as the black and white paint lifted her head, flicking her ears at the sound of her master’s call. “That’s right. Get over here. God, you are a stubborn bitch sometimes,” he added under his breath, bemused by the animal’s obstinance. Not that he complained. It was one of the qualities that swayed him to pay three hundred dollars for the big beast, more than fair price for a mare of her age. He liked to think of her as a classic work horse.

Intuitive as well, because the paint seemed to know stubborn bitch was a term of endearment. When the horse’s hooves came into view and he felt a nudge at his thigh, Casey reached over to stroke her muscled leg, up to her underbelly.

“Yeah … girl. Not here,” he said, watching her muzzle go lower, pushing her nose towards the flap of his brown coat puddled on the ground. At times, it got her an apple or a piece of peppermint he had tucked away in the inside pocket. But tonight, the paint let out a blow through her nostrils and stomped, coming up empty.

“That’s all you can think of, eh? Hell of a lot of good you did back there today.” Casey drew his hand up the side of her neck, feeling heat roll off the short, smooth coat of hair, dampened by sweat from a steady gait. “Suppose it would be too much to ask to hand me the pack?” he muttered. “Or are you going to stand there and watch me try to do it?”

The way the horse snorted and lifted her head told him exactly what he already knew. It was her way of saying you’re on your own, bucko.

“Yeah, well, I’ll remember this,” Casey told her, making a grab for the harness. “At least stay still, will ya?” 

First he latched his fingers around the stirrup, inching up to the cinch, and finally grabbed the horn. As soon as he tightened his fist to pull himself up, he cringed at the burn of torn flesh. The whiskey in his pack could dull the pain, but he couldn’t risk clouding his senses, so he fished out a canvas sack he used to store his bedroll instead. 

At least the knife was still in his belt. He held the handle between his teeth while he stretched the canvas with one arm, and then holding the blade, he notched the fabric. A few good yanks where he had started the tears, and he managed to get the tough cloth split into long swathes. 

God, now how to tie it without use of an arm? Shit. It would be shoddy at best until he could get another set of hands to reluctantly pitch in.

Clenching his jaw, he wrapped the rag end over end, around his bicep and shoulder. Then another strip, followed by a third. There. Not a whole hell of a lot of good, but enough to get him back on the trail. With the last strip circled around his arm, he grabbed onto the two loose ends and pulled them taut. 

“Oh, hell.” Casey groaned at the pressure, and did it again. 

He tested his shoulder, one small rotation, front and back – and immediately stopped, cursing his stupidity. Did he need to do that to know it still hurt like hell? And sure enough, when he glanced down, blood was already seeping into the top layer of the crude bandage. Nothing he could do about that. Just needed to get out of here.

Next, he would need a shirt, but hold on, where’s the pocket watch? The only think he couldn’t lose was still in the godforsaken tweed trousers. So rooting it out, he tucked the watch into the pack for safekeeping, and then dug around until he found a blue woolen shirt Liam had stuffed in there. 

“Christ,” he murmured, but with difficulty, he got it over both shoulders. He ran a hand over his face, bracing himself for the next step. It seemed to take forever, but he managed to get it buttoned up most of the way. Finally, using the toe of his boot, he slid the brown coat within reach and bent down to scoop it up. 

Dammit. Like that, more blood blossomed through the shirt, ran down his arm. 

Casey frowned and slipped on the coat. Now to get up on the horse again. “Any last words of advice, Vic, or are you gonna just stand there and watch me do this, too?” Shaking his head, he grabbed the horn of the saddle and pulled himself up. This he could do with one hand. He had learned years ago how to climb onto a horse while his other hand fired a gun. A skill that had come in handy from time to time. And today was one of those times.

Casey licked his lips and whistled low one more time. “Move it.” Two heels dug into her belly, not too hard, and Vic complied, trotting back up the creek bank, wading through the tall brambles. He stopped her on the knoll and glanced over his shoulder.

To the east, Jay Connolly of the C&F Steel family probably had a full blown search party out for him by now. The kind of search party that involved lots of guns and maybe a noose.

That meant John Casey tugged the reins, steering Vic off the trail. Northwest. Along the tree line of the ridge, down to Fawn Valley. To find a refuge until the storm passes.

-x-

“Mr. Gould.” Casey held out his hand, smiled politely – since in this scenario, indeed, he was Mr. Gould. 

“My associate.” Jay Connolly nodded at a man leaning against a table in the corner. “He’ll stay for the transaction. If you don’t mind,” he added, taking a seat behind a massive mahogany number that belonged in the office of a blow-hard bureaucrat. “Please sit.”

The easy math told Casey that the associate was simply there to observe the proceedings with the kind of negotiation skills that required caliber … of the .22 variety. But the asshole had the holster strap in place over the butt of the gun, and showed barely a scrape or thumb nail mark against the leather. The real markings were all there, however. They screamed this was the kid’s first rodeo.

Casey repressed a slanted look to his partner, who was sure to pick up on the goddamn obvious. But Liam O’ Doherty, being the ice-cold heartless bastard that he was, gave away nothing. Instead, Casey watched as his boss returned a tight smile and took a seat on the opposite side of the desk. 

“I understand you’re ready to listen to offers today, Mr. Connolly,” Liam said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs. “Despite all appearances?”

Yes, he saw it.

“To be fair, Mr. O’ Doherty, I –”

“Liam, please,” his boss corrected gently without any evidence of his unpolished Irish brogue. It had always fascinated Casey the way the snake could slither in and out of accents at will. “This is a cordial business call.”

“Liam. Well, I should tell you,” Connolly went on, “I’m entertaining other offers for the holdings. Aggressive offers, too, if I may add. So, my point being, unless what you have for me today tells me that you are a serious contender, this could be a short meeting.”

The chairman of Black Rock smiled back at him. Casey supposed it was the same smile a rattlesnake flashed before striking a jackrabbit. Here goes. 

Naturally, Liam’s mouth twisted into a smile. “Very good, Mr. Connolly.” He tipped his head at Casey and nodded. “My client, Mr. Gould, is a representative of Union Pacific. He’s been authorized to broker a deal today. One that I’m sure you’ll find – what was the term you used? Aggressive?” 

That was Casey’s cue. He leaned over in his seat and slipped a hand into the leather satchel next to his boots. The papers were all there, in order of course, exactly as they had planned it. The seal of UP, a striped shield in the center of outstretched wings, looked prominent on the heading of the documents.

Not too shabby of a letterhead. Exacting, really. But Black Rock took pride in its illusion of reality.

Mr. Gould was up next. Casey smiled at the man, which took considerable effort, because being dressed-up like a dandy on his way to Sunday church was always the part that made his fucking skin crawl. The dark cutaway coat emphasized his broad shoulders, true, but the pants were made for someone with a narrow waist and slim hips. Which meant they were digging into his middle like sharpened bear claws. The stiff white shirt with a Windsor knot tie and stick pin was supposed to give him the look of gentleman – one thing John Casey was not the other twenty-three and a half hours of the day. Only one element of the get-up was his own – a gold pocket watch etched with eagle’s wings on the casing and given to him by his grandfather. The one thing that was real.

The rest of this frippery could go to hell, or at least, it was heading into the coal stove after this charade. 

“Mr. Connolly, I have the paperwork, and as Mr. O’ Doherty has stated, I have been approved to submit this offer.” Casey shifted in his chair and placed the documents in front of Connolly. “You can see the proposal is aligned with our initial discussions –”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Connolly flipped to the last page and reached for a pair of reading glasses at the corner of his desk. He set them on the end of his nose, peering through the oval lenses as he studied the page. 

The tinted red skin at his winged collar was the first indication. It spread like ants on a kicked-up anthill, crawling up his chin to his cheeks and finally his forehead turned a shade of peony pink.

Casey always thought of this moment as the calm before the storm. Now was not the time to flinch, so he looked the man dead square in the eyes. “United Pacific’s bid, Mr. Connelly, takes into account the fact that other property holders along the this line,” and Casey paused to trail his finger over a small folio map, designating the townships and proposed rail lines, “will agree to similar terms, allowing us to bypass Roaring Fork and terminate in Leadville.”

“Similar terms?” A dry chuckle of disbelief surged from Connolly’s throat. “This is highway robbery,” he said, rising out of his chair. “South Park and Pacific will laugh at an offer like this. No one will agree to these prices. My holdings are worth five times what you’re offering.” 

“Well, they … were worth that,” Liam said in an odd, soft voice as he waved a hand in a calming gesture. “But you see, South Park and Pacific just extended offers – lucrative ones, I might add – to the property owners along a proposed extension here as well.” Deliberately, he traced his finger over an alternate route. “The Western Slope, bordering Crystal River, and dissecting the ridge to Roaring Fork.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Connolly bared his teeth in feral scowl. “That’s not possible.”

Mr. Gould spread out a large hand over the map. “If I may.” When Connolly simply glared at him, Casey bent forward and reached into the leather satchel again, pulling out another document. “This was submitted at the county seat in Basalt. By South Park and Pacific Railroad. A proposition to redraw property lines of their potential holdings.”

Damn. Impressive, Casey thought, pretending to give the document a cursory glance. He had to give Pete Burke a lot of credit. The sleazy counterfeiter that Liam called upon to produce precise, though wholly forged documents, was getting good at this. 

“Essentially, with this deal in place, your property is near worthless.” Liam looked up at the man casually and slipped a fountain pen out of his vest. He began to absently twiddle it between his fingers. Calm, civilized. “Your holdings are a hundred miles from the extension.”

“What the fuck do you want, then?” Connolly put his hands on the desk and lowered his face to their level, not modulating the menace in his tone. “Why are you even here? According to this, South Park and Pacific has tendered a deal.” Shaking his head, he turned his hard eyes on Casey. “Why is Union Pacific in my office, Mr. Gould?”

Did he mean to emphasis the name, or was it only an odd coincidence? Casey’s jaw tightened, the only visible evidence that he had picked up on it. “There remains, however… an outside chance we may still be able to do business.”

Connolly straightened abruptly, fueled by the energy of a complete blindside. He snorted and let out a curse. “I think you should leave.”

“I think you should listen,” Liam said, those coal black eyes of his igniting like a snake’s on its prey. “The deal may not be lost – and you have only the opportunity to gain. Hear us out, and if you don’t agree – well, we won’t be back to bother you again.”

Connolly was the first to break the steady eye contact. He stepped away from his desk and ran a hand through his hair. “You have two minutes, Mr. Gould.”

A command. John Casey had a rule of not taking any guff. But apparently, Mr. Gould was gutless, because right about the time Casey felt the urge to come out of his chair, Liam’s boot tapped the side of his shoe. 

Stay. You’ll have your chance.

Casey cleared his throat politely, and turned the map back to face Connolly. “Our engineers who have studied the land plat, here, believe that the watershed will make the construction too risky. UP would still like to pursue the original route, the one that abuts your holdings, but my bosses aren’t willing to commit to construction unless South’s falls through.”

“Why?” Connolly demanded.

“With all due respect, sir, silver mines aren’t bottomless. Failed mining towns prove that. Along the old narrow gauge route ….” Casey let his finger drift over the western edge of the map. “White River … the Highlands …. The area can’t support two lines. Only one. We’re willing to transfer the risk to our shoulders – wait out the results of the land studies – if you agree to the terms. Union Pacific still wants the route to be this one. Yours.”

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Black Rock, which had gone to the trouble of setting up the deal, complete with a fake buyer, was more interested in the route than Union Pacific at the moment. And when the deal was sealed, Liam O’ Doherty – Black Rock – would have major holdings on both routes. UP and South Park would be dealing with him, regardless of the route or who won the race.

But this son of a bitch didn’t need to know that. 

Casey watched the man’s muscle tic in his cheek. It usually happened about now. When the mark realized he was trapped, that he had to barter or lose, well, this is where some pricks could get a little unpredictable. Try to tap dance their way out of it.

Connolly proved to be typical. He began pacing along the side of his desk, to the window and back. But when he turned, Casey’s neck prickled with awareness. The man seemed to linger a heartbeat too long at the window, focusing on … something. 

“So my choices? Sign the deal – at a price that it tantamount to a hold-up, or wait it out and risk losing all the value? Is that it, gentlemen?”

How could Liam not see it – but maybe the bastard did. He had to notice the way those green eyes had shifted towards the door behind them, and in that split second, Casey’s stomach clenched. He let his hand fall to his side, along the scratchy vest to his thigh near the holster. When he met the man’s eyes, he knew.

Fists unclenched on the table, Liam watched Connolly’s face, his boss still giving away nothing. Now what? He never walked without getting what he wanted, but here he was, beginning to gather up the papers. “Perhaps you’re right.” The chairman of Black Rock glanced at Casey as he rose from his chair. “There are other interested parties, and Mr. Gould –”

“Is a goddamn fraud,” Connolly broke in, venom on his voice. “I don’t know who he is, but – James.” He signaled to the armed man behind him. “Take Mr. Gould and –” 

“I wouldn’t do that, James.” Already on his feet, Casey leveled off his Colt .45 in the vicinity of Jay Connolly’s right temple. “Considering where you’re standing, kid, you might get that nice suit a bit messy when your boss’s head splits.” Casey inched forward and shifted the grip on his gun. “You may just want to stay put, eh?”

The idiot blonde kid gaped at him, making Casey want to shoot him just for being a worthless piece of dung. Across the desk, Connolly’s gaze dropped to the firearm, passed over Casey’s chest, taking in his ready stance and no bullshit eyes. Hesitating, he finally waved off the kid with a flick of his wrist. 

Liam’s outstretched fingers had frozen over the papers. Speaking of unpredictable bastards, what the hell was going through his mind? Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Liam toss him a look of confusion. A look that didn’t belong on the features of a wolf, capable of tearing into his throat.

Without turning his head, Casey met the baffled look with the barrel of his ivory-handled pocket revolver, brandished with his other hand and now pressed along the line of Liam’s jaw. Truthfully, he hated carrying such a pussy revolver, but he couldn’t argue with the fact that it was easy to hide within the confines of the wool vest. Arms extended, appearing to the world nonchalant, Casey kept his Colt pointed at Connolly, the other pistol targeting his boss. Neither gun in his hands wavered. 

“Mr. Gould.” Liam raised his hands slowly, keeping his eyes pinned on Casey’s face. “Maybe we can discuss –”

“Connolly,” Casey cut in evenly. The sound of a bullet dropping into the chamber made each man focus on Casey’s thumb, releasing the hammer. “I strongly recommend that whoever is waiting at the door behind me get the hell out of the way,” he growled. “Tell him.”

Jay Connolly opened his mouth. That was when someone burst through the window. Shards of glass exploded into the room, sending the men ducking towards the floor. Not before Casey felt a bullet pierce his upper arm. 

Shit. 

John Casey was hardly a green horn wet behind the ears. Far from it. But he had to cuss to himself for losing sight of the life lesson he should know by now. Because everything paled and blurred compared to the knowledge of one thing: this shit never ever goes down according to the plan.

-x-

“Easy. Easy, girl.” Casey tugged the reins, bringing the paint to a stop. The forest provided a buffer to the world, and he had followed the thick pine cover along the edge to a grassy ridge. They came to a halt on a rise; a sloped expanse of meadow provided a glimpse of the rolling valley beneath them. A black river, twisting and bending like a lover’s spine, cut through the fields to the north and disappeared in a gorge between two hills. He didn’t come this far to soak in the view, however. Right now, he needed to find a haven tucked within the barren landscape.

“More luck coming our way, Vic.” Casey shrugged and lifted the flap of his coat to get a look at his upper sleeve. The blood stain blossomed, purple-black in the dark, spreading past his arm to the fabric over his chest, his shoulder. “Fucking great, huh?” The rise afforded a view of a storm brewing in the west, over the tree line and rocky bluff, which meant they would be dodging its wrath within twenty minutes or so. 

He stilled, waiting for the next flash of lightening to reveal the valley below. The cast-iron clouds seemed to roil and glow; the wind picked up, the leaves turned ghostly as they twisted on their branches. There, a flick of light then darkness, followed by another and then the steady rumble of thunder.

“Still … be still,” he murmured, shifting on the saddle at the stomp of impatient hooves under him. “I know, I know. You don’t like it either, girl, being out here like this, but hold your – well, just shut the hell up, eh?”

Taking a long drink from his canteen, Casey then squinted at the crook of the river, a joint where the meadow met a stand of trees. When he first came over the ridge, he swore he saw a dim light, but now he was willing to dismiss it. Maybe it was only a reflection on the rippling water at the turn. 

But there it was again. A glimmer of something that sliced through the night, vague and murky. So he waited, blue eyes pinned to that area of the gorge. His patience paid off. The next flash of lightening exposed a white four-cornered box, hardly bigger than a dot from this distance. Next to it stood a rectangular, taller structure with a peaked roof. A desolate-looking farmstead and a barn. He had been right about that.

Fully alert, Casey sat up higher in the saddle. It could be the kind of place that a man with the need to disappear would be able to do just that. He blinked against the night, refocusing his eyes on the rocky ledge that would eventually lead them to the basin. “You gonna just stand there and let us get struck by lightning, girlie, or move your ass?” 

Letting his hand slide over the leather holster, he loosened the strap. He shoved the canteen back in the bag, trying not to think about the consequences if there were any luckless inhabitants holed up against the storm.

-x-

“Brilliant, my boyo.” Liam’s large, sweaty hands landed with a slap on Casey’s cheeks, slick fingers that told Casey what his boss would never admit. That he had been taken off guard, too. The large bear of a man, the one person Casey had come across in his life who matched him in size, squeezed his face and laughed. “I always knew you were my brightest, Johnnie.” The pure excitement of the deed forced Liam to joggle his cheeks again. “You always thought on your feet, lad. The way you pointed the gun at me ….” A paw like a grizzly’s came up to ruffle his hair, a bit too enthusiastically. “He’ll never know I was in on it … you left the door open to finish the deal.”

Several things at once pissed him off. Frankly, Casey was just past forty years, and it had been a damn long time since someone pinched his cheeks and ruffled his hair. But the circumstance that seemed to escape his boss – that fucker – was that he was now on run. And oh, by the way, had been shot, but that was just a minor inconvenience at this juncture. 

“Well, I left the door open for you,” Casey said, attempting to pry the man’s hands away from his face. “You can finish the deal.” He glanced down pointedly at his hand, clamped to his upper arm, blood seeping between his fingers. When he looked up, he gave Liam a face reserved for the country doctor removing a tooth. “I’ll be just peachy here. Thanks for askin’.”

“Laddie, laddie,” he crooned darkly, though Liam dropped the smile and the happy attitude. “Settle down.” Backing up a step, he tapped Casey’s cheek one more time, this one feeling more like a warning, and let his hand fall to his belt. “Tis a flesh wound at the most. You’ll be holding a gun in your fist in no time.”

Casey muttered and cursed to himself, slumping against a tree. The team had agreed to reconvene there if the deal went to hell – Black Rock didn’t like to take chances – but the last place Casey expected to be was standing at the contingency location, under gnarled branches and bleeding on the crisp white dandy shirt.

“Who was it?” Casey asked flatly, tipping his head back, concentrating on the way the leaves waved, and not the pain. “They were tipped off, and I want to know who.” Though they both damn well knew.

The fury was overlooked until now, but Liam O’ Doherty stiffened, his thick arms tensed with the need to hurt. While he could wear the cloak of a civilized financier when it was called for, in actuality he was bloody strong, dangerous as a poison, and knew how to fight in ways that went far beyond even Casey’s skills. Even though he had ten years on Casey – and hard years at that – his boss was deadly as the devil when crossed, and he had been betrayed. 

“It’s a shame really.” Liam’s voice was mild as he licked his bottom lip and tossed aside his jacket. “His skills had improved markedly – the documents, the artwork with the maps. Huh. He’ll be missed by his family, I’m sure.” 

Like hell. That twitchy bastard of a forger was a greasy dodger and not a soul would claim the body, even if they could find it.

Interesting choice of words, too. Liam already discussed Peter Burke in past tense, but on the other hand, he was as good as dead by nightfall, anyway.

“We’re sitting ducks if we stay here,” Casey said. “They’re idiots, not blind.”

“And that’s why you’re not staying here.” In an instant, Liam clamped down on his wrist, the hard pressure of his fingers digging into Casey’s flesh, while his gaze slid over him like a path of hot oil on skin. “I need you to listen. I’m going back to the Connelly’s. I’ll tell them the trail was dry, and I’ll lead them towards Sand Creek. 

“And?”

“You, in the meantime, will head to Picture Rock and on to Fawn Valley.”

Casey made a noise in his chest, and when Liam released him, he started to peel off the tight-fitting jacket. “My horse?”

“I’ll retrieve her. She’ll be tied to a tree on the southwest corner of the meadow at the fork to Limon. With a heavy pack of things you’ll need … for the journey.”

Journey. Another nice choice of words. “So I take it I disappear,” Casey spit out bitterly. He really wanted the chance to plug that little prick of a forger for setting them up like this at the end of con. Make him suffer and beg before ending him. 

“Only until the heat dies down, Johnnie.” Glancing past his shoulder, Liam slid his hand up, dangerously close to the wound and making him stare into his eyes levelly. Never overt, Casey just swallowed down the barbed-wire knot coiling in his gut and stared back. “I can’t afford to lose my second-in-charge now, can I? The one I brought into the fold, a mere boyo, tough as nails and skunk piss.” Liam squeezed again, not expecting a reply. “A week … ten days tops. We’re thirty miles from home, and after the deal is struck, we’ll never lay eyes on this one again.” He jerked his head in the direction of Connelly’s ranch. “Now, go.”

So that he could let him bleed, forget about him, and maybe even send those jackasses back to find him. 

He couldn’t be thinking like that. He started to fumble with the buttons of his shirt, attempting to stuff a handkerchief against his flesh until he could get the further up the trail. They’d follow the crimson droplets easily if they could, and Casey wasn’t about to make another mistake.

-x-

“Suppose you wanna bitch about this too?” With the lead rope looped and tied around a post, Casey dragged his fingers through her mane, keeping his voice low despite the wind whistling through the barn’s exposed rafters. “You won’t be out here long. But you make a damn racket with those hooves, girl, and I’m betting whoever’s in there may not be stone deaf.”

He turned and faced the dark, something teasing at his senses. There, again. It hit where he was weak. Casey knew the routine by now, but this was somehow different. More than the instinctual need to survive, more than reacting quickly enough in the face of unknowns. No, not that. It was the promise that something cataclysmic, a primitive want that was impossible to name, would burn him if he got too close tonight.

Asshole. Stupid friggin’ asshole. Get a grip. 

Brushing it off as a hallucination, he bit back the sharp pain, pulled his coat tight around his middle, and strode across the yard. Mud sucked up any sounds that his boots would make on the earth. As he approached the porch, tiny but comfortable looking with a chair next to the door, Casey took a deep breath, hand sliding for his gun belt. Then he took a grip on the cool handle of the pistol.

One foot landed on the porch, followed by the other. When he heard the slightest squeak of a loose board, he extended the Colt fully towards his target, which at the moment was the center of the door. In about a minute from now, it would be the luckless son of bitch on the other side of the door. 

He breathed in and listened to the thunder rumbling along the rolling black clouds. The skies sat at the precipice of opening up within seconds, the storm swirling on top of them. 

“This will be it,” he whispered under his breath. “Only one way through the door.”

He braced his arm and closed his eyes briefly, cursing his aching body and the only thing that had scared him in a long while. Because inexplicably, an odd shiver crossed the hairs of his nape, a warning bell ringing between his ears. 

Then he lifted a boot and kicked the door open.

A pinprick of a second later, Casey became keenly aware of two things. 

A boy with eyes the color of worn leather left out in sun, filled with misery and fear, stood inside the doorway with a gun in his shaky hands.

And this. For the second time that day, he was going to take a bullet unless he pulled the trigger first.

So he did.

 

-x-End Chapter Two Wings of Grace -x-


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

“Come on, brown eyes. Wake up.” With the gun still in his hand, Casey nudged the young man’s thigh with the toe of his boot. “Open ‘em, kiddo.”

If he did, he’d see a man cool as ice, holding a gun in a steady hand. But in reality, Casey’s heart was kicking like holy hell, perspiration ran cold over his skin. So what that the bullet had missed by a country mile. Being shot at from close range was getting damn old, damn fast.

“Hey.” Another nudge. His eyes roamed over the kid’s face, his chest, the sprawl of arms and legs at screwy angles where he fell. It was then that he took inventory of the tall, slender build, a mop of chestnut-colored hair, and a soft face. None of it belonging to a man in an isolated cabin in the middle of Kiowa territory. 

The weird tingling on his neck was back. It all felt … off. The deal going south. Finding this kid. On top of everything else, there was not even a twitch from the young man in the five minutes it had taken to search the house, bring Vic into the barn, and retrieve his saddle pack. 

Casey shook his head. A curly-haired shave tail. Out in the middle of nowhere. He had been around the territory long enough to know that for some things, there was just no explanation. 

He had no idea what the kid was thinking, but lying next to the boy’s feet, there was a buckshot rifle, a pea-shooter that no man with an ounce of dignity would be seen with. What the hell was this young colt doing with that piece? 

Casey dropped to one knee and tapped the kid’s cheek. Still no movement. As he pushed his hat back on his head, he took the opportunity to study the young man’s slack face one more time, his untidy locks, dark brows. Trying to jog his memory, he wondered if he had ever run across this kid – but no. 

He’d remember meeting a man who had to be almost as tall as he was who carried a fucking twelve gauge. A kid like that is not something you see every day out here, he figured.

“God, I don’t believe this,” he mumbled. What the hell had just happened? He really was out cold, and though he didn’t want to deal with a kid scared out of his mind, he needed him awake if he was going to get any use out of him. 

So he tapped his cheek bone a little harder this time. “Hey, killer, let’s see them.”

At least one truth emerged out of this mess, and it was this: if there was a quarter mile of open range available to miss the shot, well, then the kid on the floor would’ve missed by that much. Sure, Casey had witnessed some pathetic marksmanship before, most notably as a young Major in the war between the states, full of snot-nosed kids who came close to shooting their own peckers off, but never quite like this one. 

His own shot missed the kid’s left ear by about six inches. Of course, that was exactly within the square inch he had meant to lodge it. Seeing that if he’d meant to kill him, he’d be dead. 

But not yet.

“Kid.” Casey glowered down at him, almost blaming the young man for making this difficult. “Get up.”  
The kid was stock-still, dead to the world. Flexing the bone-tired weariness from his muscles, Casey blew out a breath and lowered his hand to the side of the man’s head. It had to be there, so as he slid his fingers through the dark waves, Casey closed his palm around the crown and lifted his neck. He touched gingerly, here … up a little further, feeling along his skull – and yep, there it was. A knot the size of a small egg. 

Infuriating as it was, the kid had actually gotten in the first shot. Then the idiot did it to himself.

“Christ.” Casey snorted. With the gun in his face, and an unsteady boy standing there wide-eyed, caught in a frozen moment of pleading eye contact, well, maybe he had tensed.

Long enough for the boy to pull the trigger. When the bullet flew past him, the rush of adrenaline snapped his senses back into place, and Casey squeezed off a slug in answer to his cockeyed shot. A warning volley to drop the goddamn gun.

That wasn’t quite what happened. At the crack, the boy had jerked backwards like a startled colt in the barnyard – and that was about the time he smacked his noggin on the metal peg over the door. Fell to the ground like a boxer in round 87 or so. 

Under different circumstances Casey might’ve laughed. But considering the blood on his shirt, his arm throbbing with the fire of hell, he grimaced and slapped him again. “You’re wearing out my patience, kid.”

“Ah … wha’?” Just the barest of movement, life returning. Long fingers curled into his palm, in and out, and finally brown eyes there let out a sound, a low-pitched whimper. Eye lashes began to flutter. “Why’re you …” 

“Open.” Another light slap.

“Ow.” The kid pawed a hand irately in the air, apparently to rid his world of the nuisance, and tried to jerk his head out of the way. His eyes slid open, blinking, bringing Casey’s face into focus. “You’re not at all … what I expected God to look like.” He blinked again. “Too scruffy,” he said, his fuzzy vision shifting down. “And … big.”

Casey stared, since this was the first time he had been mistaken for that particular Big Guy. “You’re not dead, kiddo.” He lowered his face over the young man’s, making those brown eyes flare wide. “Who are you? What’s your name, boyo?”

“Me?” He could feel the kid tense up underneath him. After thinking about it, and maybe realizing a strange man had burst into his house, shot at him, and then demanded his name, the boy’s face shifted from blank confusion to stubbornness. “Go to hell.”

Casey shrugged, centered the muzzle of his Colt at the tip of his nose. “I’ll say it again, only because I can be a patient man, cub. What is your name?”

“Is that a – oh.” Having to focus on the gun, crammed to the end of his nose, caused the kid’s eyes to cross. The stubbornness wavered, then dissolved completely. “W-well. It’s … Charles. Chuck.”

“Heh. Good boy.” Casey moved the barrel to dig into his cheek, working a flinch out of the kid. “Did our Maker give you a last name, Charles, or did he stop there to keep it simple for ya?”

“Or for you,” the kid muttered, glaring up at him. Chuck, or so the boy said, lifted a hand to feel the back of his head. “Oh, God.” He closed his eyes in a wince. “Ow … ow … ow. What happened?” 

“Name,” Casey replied, and ignoring him, he stuffed the muzzle against the kid’s temple. “Shouldn’t have to remind you that I’m the one with the gun – and you’re the one unarmed and on your back.”

At the mention of a pistol, the kid’s eyes darted down to the damn popgun still on the floor at his feet. Was this kid serious? Would he would even consider making a dive for that? 

Casey shifted on his haunches to loom over him, and had to smirk. “Your toy doesn’t count. Now I’m going to ask one more time –”

“Bartowski, okay? Geez.” The kid turned his head away as if he was hiding those brown eyes from something. “I don’t know you, if that’s what you’re worried about … and I wish you would just take what you want and leave.” 

The name was peculiar. Casey searched his memory, trying to determine if it was associated with any of his business dealings – or his more secretive transactions – but he came up dry. 

“Bartowski.” Casey grunted. If the kid had any sense, that noise should’ve told him exactly what he thought of the Polish immigrants that were beginning to penetrate the perimeter of Colorado. Anywhere west of the Mississippi actually, but that was beside the point. 

Deliberately, Casey stuck the gun in his temple again and gave the kid a hard poke. “Look at me.” His voice dropped to a low rumble. “Who else lives here?” 

“With … me?” 

Casey squinted at the top of his head. “You took a good knock, eh, kiddo?” He had already found the rest of the house vacant – but any surprises from another occupant barging in would be unwelcome. Mostly for the occupant. “You got any family, kid?”

He was angry, hurt. It was more than the bump. The kid inched backwards, making the loose floorboards creak under his body, though there was nowhere to go. “No … no family,” he said. “I live here by myself. And as an aside, I like it that way, so if you don’t mind, I think –”

“Really.” The hint of disbelief in his voice made the kid ruffled a bit. “All alone out here, huh?” Casey just eyed him speculatively, and then lowered the gun from his temple. “Sisters, brothers … a wife or two?”

“No, I told you.” The kid’s hands curled into fists. Did this little shit think he would slug him? But he rested his elbows on his knees, and lowered his forehead against his hands. “Only Buddy and me.”

The gun snapped back against the dark hair at his temple. “Buddy. Where?”

“I ... I think he went into the wood crib when the shot went off.”

Dammit. The one place Casey did not check. “Tell him to get out here. Now.”

“Uh, or –?”

Casey stared down at the most perplexing man he had ever laid eyes on. “Or, I shoot you.”

The kid wet his lips. “But, you see, it might help if you knew –”

“Now.” 

Chuck flinched when Casey pressed the muzzle into his ear. “Okay, okay. I was only trying to tell you, he really doesn’t listen to anyone.” 

“Do it.” Casey prodded his temple, his heated impatience swirling until –

“Uh, here … kitty, kitty, kitty … c’mon boy –”

“… the hell?” Had he been in the mood to be amused, Casey was sure he would have found humor in the fact that the kid managed to surprise him when nothing much in life did any longer. But with blood trickling down his ribcage, the humor was lost on him, so he put his hands on his knees and stared down at the kid. “Are you talking about a fu –”

“Well, I tried to tell you.” The muscles in his rawboned physique rolled up as he raised himself a little, rubbed the back of his head, and glanced at the door to the wood crib. “Buddy is a –”

“A cat.” Casey’s tone alone told the kid to shut the hell up. “Let me get this straight, I almost shot you because of a damn cat?”

“Wait.” The kid’s eyebrows disappeared under his unruly waves. “Is that … are you bleeding?”

“Whatdaya know. Brown eyes here is a genius.” An expressive little bastard, too. This kid had a mug like an open book, emotions fluttering over it like pages in a breeze … not a bit like any man he had met before. 

“But … how did that –”

“Not your problem, kid.” Casey took his jaw and steered his face up, forcing those eyes to meet his. With his palm curving around, he pressed into the warm, smooth skin of his cheeks, damp from perspiration. A dose of healthy fear. “Good news, though.” Casey’s fingers clenched in tighter. “You’re gonna get a chance to help me. Move it.” 

“Oh, no.” The kid jerked his head back suddenly, wrenching his jaw free. “No, no, no…. That’s … blood.”

Tearing his eyes from Chuck’s, Casey slanted a look at the opening of his unbuttoned coat. A patch bloomed through the shirt, an obvious blood-sodden clue seeping up from the makeshift bandage. Damn thing hadn’t done a lick of good.

“Hell. I’m gonna need you.” Casey glanced at the kid. “I said get up, sunshine.”

“I was actually thinking of staying here.” The kid tried to put some distance between them by scooting back on the floor. “It’s not so bad when you –”

“Okay, the hard way, then,” Casey cut in, ending this bullshit by yanking him to his feet. “Stand.”

“Ow! Easy! Can I have my arm back?” Chuck tugged, his lean muscles tightening in a knot under the soft cotton shirt, giving up when Casey’s strong sure fingers simply dug in. “Again, ow!”

“I could tear it off and hand it to you. Would you like that, kid?”

“Let’s try this again,” Chuck said, letting himself get shoved into the chair next to the settee. “Hey, watch it! Besides, you haven’t told me who you are. You know my name. It’s only fair.”

“None of your fucking business.” 

Chuck stared. “Well either your teachers were charmed by you as a kid, or your parents had a sense of humor.”

Casey had to bite his lip. “Shut it.” With a warning look to the nosy kid to not to even try to get up, Casey plopped down against the back of the settee and let out a breath. With a bit of a struggle, he brought up his legs across the cushion, stretching out as far as the sofa would allow. “Fuck,” he growled, looking down at the crimson stain on his shirt. “Son of a bitch.”

“Are you always this articulate?”

“Are you always this hard of hearing? I said shut it.”

Chuck cautiously massaged the back of his head. “Ouch. Dammit,” he murmured, letting loose his own version of curse. “What do you want?”

“I said you’re gonna help me.”

“But is that –”

“No, I spilled sarsaparilla on myself, cupcake.” Casey rolled his eyes and clutched a handful of his collar, bringing the kid in close until his vision was filled with soulful eyes … eyes too dangerous to look into. “I need you to make yourself useful.”

“Use – again, what? Hold on. I have questions, lots of questions. I mean, first of all, how did you even sneak up on me like that? Because I like to think I’m pretty alert and my hearing is my third best asset, and I didn’t even pick up on –”

“Take off these damn pants.”

“ – a sound of a mere leaf crumpling, or a hoof on the path – not until your boot made that creaking noise on the porch, so how do you even – what now?”

“You heard me. I can’t use my arm.” Fingers tightened on the fabric in case he got the idea of trying to pull back. “Take off my pants.” Casey lowered his eyes, tilting his chin down to the offending garment. “Do it.”

If those brown eyes looked dazed before this, now they were filled with something more along the lines of panic. “I’m – take your – no. I don’t think ….” 

“Eyes here.” Casey reached out and cuffed the side of his head. “Look at me.” 

“Ow!” The kid jolted, rubbing the abused spot. “Are you always like this?”

“I said listen. They aren’t mine and frankly they’re squeezing the life out of me. Not to mention other parts I’d like to get some use out of at some undefined point in the future.” Casey huffed at himself for even bothering to explain this predicament. “They were made for some skinny scarecrow of a – well, hell, someone like you. So, I’ll tell you again, nicely, kid, cut the bullshit and take them off.”

Chuck glanced down, obviously still struggling to follow the words. “Take them …? Oh, God.” Wavering, he dragged a hand through his dark curls, which succeeded in tangling them up even more. “How did you get someone else’s pants?"

“A long story – and lucky for me, I don’t have to tell it.” Casey released the kid’s balled up collar and shoved him back. “Stop stalling.”

Fidgeting, the kid’s eyes coursed down. Then he looked away, lashes sweeping to the side. “I think they look … well, they fit fine from my vantage point, and maybe you should just leave your pants … on?” 

Holy Christ. What were the chances? How did he find the only man west of St. Louis who was skittish at the sight of blood and a little bare skin?

Casey felt his mouth open, all set to ridicule the young man. But as he lifted his head towards his dark- eyed hostage, he drew in a breath – then questioned the reason his voice died right then. He had no room to care about him, and if the plan played out, this kid was as good as dead anyway. 

So why?

Just to get this straight, it was not because of the way Chuck’s lean body stiffened under his hand a minute ago, and it sure as hell had nothing to do with an interesting blush that crept up the kid’s neck until his cheeks burned scarlet.

“If you’re afraid for your virtue, kid, trust me, I’m not in the mood right now.” 

“Hah. Ever think about joining a vaudeville road show?”

“Ever think about what you would look like with a boot up your ass?”

“No, I ….” Chuck’s face clouded up. “Well, speaking of those, they have to come off first, don’t they?”  
Casey raised a foot, then the other. Surprisingly, the kid managed this without breaking anything. He tossed the boots to the side, shot him a go to hell look, and found the button of the trousers. “It would help if you lifted up at least. They’re a little tight, you know.”

“My point.” But dutifully, Casey lifted his hips while Chuck unbuttoned the pants. When he grabbed onto the waistband and pulled, the next thing Casey felt was the tentative touch of warm fingers sliding down his hipbones, his bare thighs, to his calves. “Just try to keep the drawers in place, farm boy. Don’t want that blush of yours to catch fire.”

“Asshole,” the kid whispered, dodging his eyes up to the ceiling. He yanked, and the dreaded tweed britches, made for a bean pole, ended up in a messy puddle wrapped around Casey’s feet. 

“Take them,” Casey said, chuckling. “All the way, brown eyes.”

“You’re never happy, are you?” Chuck asked, and he leaned forward, trying not to let his eyes travel up Casey’s legs. Too late, but luckily for the kid, he seemed to find a safe spot on the wall to take his attention while he unraveled them. “You can kick them off now.” He kept his eyes on Casey’s face and crossed his arms. “And if you don’t mind, tell me where you have you have an extra set of trousers? So that I can get you on your way?”

“God, you are a piece of work, kid.” Casey had to shake his head if Chuck really thought it would be that easy. “Okay, yeah. My saddle pack, over by the door. Get it. There’s a pair of denims in there.” 

“Fine. Let me get that for you,” Chuck said, oozing sarcasm. The kid pointed his dark eyes at him as if they had a deal now, and retrieved the canvas bag. He lifted the flap, dug around, and held out the pants. “Now leave.”

Naïve little shit, this one was. “I don’t think you’re gonna like this part as well, kiddo, but I need help getting them on.” Casey nodded down and lifted a foot. “You’ve had your look, eh, boyo? Let’s go.” 

The insinuation sent another deep flush over his clean-shaven cheeks. Casey dismissed how much he enjoyed putting it there. Kid’s just a job, after all. A means to an end. 

“I was not looking, as you put it, I was … only wondering if you had gotten blood on my sofa.” Chuck jockeyed to get the waistband past both feet and up his calves. “And you need to lift again.”

Casey rose, and the kid’s knuckles skimmed over his thighs, then his hips as he tugged them up. “Careful, kid,” Casey said when he felt a brush against his lower belly. “Your hands are awfully close to the merchandise.” Because even at parade rest, his merchandise was currently pressed against the restraint of soft cotton, obvious as the storm churning overhead. 

Somehow, the kid got redder. “I’m glad you find this amusing,” he said under his breath. “There. Do you need me to refill your canteen for the road?”

“You forgot to button them up.”

The kid bit his lips while his fingers fumbled blindly over the buttons. “I know this is wrong, but I really hate you right now for this.” 

“Just watch the hands, eh?” As he buttoned the fly, Casey couldn’t help but feel the press of long, sure fingers against him. It had been awhile since a pair of hands – a man’s or a woman’s – had touched him there, so he relaxed under the brief stimulation. Why the hell not? This helped to offset the fucking throb in his arm. 

“That’s it.” Slotting the last button into place, the kid brought his hands on his knees and after a stretch, worked up the guts to make eye contact. He seemed to find some of his tenacity, enough to make him straighten in his seat. “I met my part of the bargain. You said you would pack up and –”

“The shirt.”

The boy’s head snapped up. “Um, come again?”

“You heard me – the shirt. You’re going to have to take it off in order to stitch me up, so get moving.” 

“Wait.” The kid started to climb out of the seat, hands waving in the air. “You think … and that I can … no. There is no scenario where someone like me can stitch up human skin.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Casey latched onto his sleeve, hauling him back into the seat. “It wasn’t a suggestion, brown eyes, it was an order. Start with the shirt. Do it.”

Chuck squinted at him. He seemed to be considering his options, and rightly deduced he didn’t have any. “Oh, shit …. You’re going to find out the hard way that I’m not good at this.” He lifted his hands, made it as far as the collar and dropped them to his lap. “I was never much of a seamstress, anything with needles really. I’ve always tried to –”

“I gotta tell ya, I’m about three seconds away from –”

“Whoa. I’m really hoping you’re only like this because, well, that has to hurt, right?” 

Casey’s glare didn’t waver.

“Oh-kay.” Chuck turned away. Swallowed. But realizing it was a losing battle, the kid at last brought up his hands to work on the first button. “I’m also hoping that after this you’ll be … less threatening?” Another two buttons. “Oh. And that you’ll notice the storm will be past by then … and you’ll remember where you were headed?”

“Can we do this without the chatter?”

“I … I don’t really, uh ….” Chuck’s gaze fell to the layer of hair over the broad expanse of muscled chest, now peeking out of the opening. His fingers sped up. “Oh. No, afraid not. You see, when I get – well, never mind. That was the last button. You don’t need –” 

“Take it,” Casey told him. “Watch the shoulder.”

“Sheesh. I am careful, you know. I’m not an idiot.” The scrape of warm fingers, gliding over his biceps to his elbows, signaled for Casey to lean forward. He complied, felt a tug and it was off. “There,” Chuck said, balling it up, giving it a toss and slapping his hands together dramatically. “All done, okay?”

“Not quite.” Bare-chested with a bloody bandage around his shoulder and upper arm, Casey slouched back into the cushion and let his eyes wander over the kid’s face. What he found confounding, or … amusing was that Chuck was doing everything in his power to avoid getting an eyeful of a half-naked man in his parlor. 

“Can I … get your shirt out of here?” he asked, dark eyes skimming to the side while he held up the pack.

“Jesus.” Casey snapped his fingers in front of his face. “Over here. Look at me.”

Reluctantly, he did as he was told, keeping his eyes on Casey’s face. “I don’t think you should go through with this. See? My hands are shaking, and I –”

“Find some needle and thread. Start with the hole in the back of my arm. That way you get your practice in before you screw it up.”

Chuck gave him a sour look and rose from the chair. “For the record, you’re not helping matters much,” he said, making his way over to a table. “Let’s see. Needle. Thread. Somewhere over here, I guess.” The odd kid began digging into a wooden tray, pulling out nails and bits of metal, and for the first time, Casey took more than a fleeting look at the cluttered table next to the stove. 

It held more that didn’t make sense about this boy. Gears and clocks, wires and cylinders, fragments of mechanical devices in various stages of repair, rolled in with a few objects Casey didn’t recognize. Off to the side, metal tools sat in a row, as if the kid had been interrupted while sorting them out. 

Hand tools. Chances were this boyo wouldn’t even think about it, but –

“Hey.” Casey sat up and tapped the butt of his gun that he had re-holstered in his belt. “Don’t put your paws on anything else over there than what I asked for. Bring the pot of water on the stove, too. Got it?”

Chuck glimpsed down at the tools, the implication striking him, and shook his head. “I’m not the kind of man you are – whoever you are,” he said, his voice barely audible. “I wouldn’t know how to hurt another man.”

Casey didn’t reply. Neither did he meet the kid’s eyes when he peered over at him.

Digging around in a box, Chuck found the needle, and then drew out a spool of white thread. He grabbed the pot, and pulling in a shaky breath, he walked around the back of the sofa. 

“Oh,” Casey heard him say.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s just … there’s no blood on the bandage back here. I think that’s good news, don’t you think?”

“Ya think?” Casey pinched the bridge of his nose. “Unwind it. Carefully.”

“Okay, okay.” The bandage looped around, hand over hand, until he followed through to the end. “This might hurt. It could be stuck to the wound in front.”

“Just pull it, dammit.”

Casey sucked in a breath between his teeth when the kid did just that. 

“I should point out, this side doesn’t look too bad, and this is your last chance to not have me –”  
“Use the clean part of the bandage to wipe it down.”

Water trickled from the rag, and Casey felt a gentle swish, back and forth, over his skin. The kid seemed to take his time getting it clean, and thankfully kept quiet back there for a minute or two. “It’s … I think that’s as good as I can get it,” he finally said.

“Good. Then start sewing it back together.”

“Oh, crap.” A warm breath behind him caressed the back of his neck, sent goose pimples over his arms. Shit. Did he have to be such a damn distraction? “All right. It’s just cotton. Just a piece of cotton. Not human skin … just soft … kinda bendy … a little flap of –”

“Ow.” Casey jolted at the sharp prick of the needle. “It’s not a fucking sock, okay?”

“A sock isn’t quite that eloquent, for one,” he heard the kid mumble under his breath. “Hold still. Oh, hell….”

“Are your eyes closed back there? Because so help me, if they are –”

“Well, I – okay.” Behind him, there was another nervous breath from the kid. “Not anymore? Whoa – hold still, I said. I’m almost done. Damn. I wish Ellie were here.”

“Who?”

The hand on his bicep tensed. “That’s, uh … nobody.” Silence stretched for a minute, only the sound of the rain pattering on the roof. Until he heard the kid swallow. “Well, that isn’t true. She’s my sister.”

Casey slanted him a look over his shoulder. “Let me guess – ow. She’s the one that got all the sewing talent in the family?”

“Hold still. No, I didn’t say that. I mean, yes, she has that too, I suppose, but ….” Another loop and tug on his skin, more sure this time. “She’s not squeamish at the sight of blood. Ellie knows how to take care of people when they’re sick. She wants to be a doctor.”

“A woman doctor. Heh.”

“Don’t sound so skeptical. There’s a new school back home in Boston, where she can – oh.” That was the sound of a mouth shutting a second too late. 

“So, you’re from Boston.” Casey grunted. “That explains a lot, city boy.” 

“That’s it.” The kid released a sound of relief. “I’m done.” 

Casey reached around and got a handful of Chuck’s shirt, pulling before he could get up. “Half done. Take a seat. Still one more bullet hole, kiddo.”

“Bullet?” Like that, Chuck’s brows lifted, the dread on his face turning to horror. “You … wait. You were … shot? With a gun? That’s how this happened?”

Casey shrugged. “No. The prick swallowed a box of bullets, ate a jar of peppers, and shot them out his bung hole at me. Who knew peppers could fly like that, eh?”

The kid sat back in the chair and gave Casey the stink-eye. “I was right. You are an asshole.”

“The front one, kid. Let’s go,” Casey said blandly, then tacked on, “Just my luck he didn’t have the precise aim you seem to have, brown eyes.”

“You know, you could just answer the questions without adding your colloquiums to the mix.” He fiddled with the needle between two fingers, either in a tizzy over the blood, the gun shot, or both. At last getting it threaded, his eyes drifted over his chest – quickly – up to his neck and bicep. Then he turned pale. “Oh, no.”

“What?” Casey poked him with his good shoulder. “Stop staring and get moving.”

“But that’s blood,” Chuck said, sounding shaky. “Oh, this is not good, so not good.”

“Hey. I need steady hands there, tiger. Wash it first. Just like the other one."

“I … I … don’t handle medical crises – really anything that involves bloodletting or… bodily fluid in general. Uh, forget about the last part.” The kid squeezed his eyes shut and put his head between his knees. “When I was a kid and I fell out of a tree –”

“God, I knew I picked the wrong farm.” Casey let out a snort at his own bad luck and stared down at that head of curls. When it didn’t move, he knocked the kid’s knee with his thigh. “This is taking too long.”

“It’s just … that one’s still bleeding,” Chuck replied, his voice muffled between his knees. “And I already told you pretty clearly that I –”

“Get your damn head up.” Casey considered reaching out and grabbing a handful of hair – soft-looking and curly mop that it was – and giving him a good shake. Except, for some ungodly reason, he let his hand drop when he remembered the lump under those curls. Damn. Glancing away, Casey decided to joggle his knee again. “Last warning, Bartowski.”

Raising his head, the kid licked his lips nervously and did everything not to look. But after an interminable half minute, he flicked a dazed pair of eyes at him, focusing on his bicep – and that’s when Casey realized maybe the boy wasn’t making up this part of the story. Because if a world could stutter and sway on its axis, that was the wobbly terra the kid was dangling from right now.

“Oh,” Chuck said, blinking. A few more times. He gave it his best shot to sit up straight, his eyes taking on a distant, hazy look. “That’s … a lot of blood. I can’t … sew you ….” 

“Hey.” Casey lunged forward and caught onto his shoulder. “Don’t you do it. Don’t you even think about fainting on me, cowboy.”

For that, Casey was met with more fluttering of his eyes. 

“I t-tried,” Chuck stammered before his head started south, almost hitting the floor. 

Almost. 

-x-

“Brown eyes, c’mon …..” 

Fuck. He fainted at the sight of blood. Fainted. Can a man fake that? Or was it to get him to lower his guard? Shoot him in the head when he turned his back? 

Casey looked down at Chuck’s limp form, the kid’s loose cheeks and lips, and what had to be a stick thin body under his shirt. Okay, maybe not a killer. 

But the last place Casey expected to be was kneeling on the floor again, trying to bring the kid back to the living for the second time in – what, an hour? 

Rolling his eyes, he tapped Chuck’s cheek again. Harder this time. “Let’s go, eh?” 

And there it was. A soft, low groan, and the kid shifted his legs, straightening his back. Wiry muscles along his neck and arms bunched as he tried to move. “Ow,” Chuck murmured, just as he rolled his head, obviously jarring the knot back there from the first time he ended up on the floor. His eyes flickered with pain and confusion at first. “Wh-wha –?”

“Let’s go Up.”

He gave another soft groan. “What … what happened?”

“What happened?” Casey eyed him from head to toe skeptically. “You were supposed to sew me up, but decided to pass out instead, cupcake.” He nodded down at his shoulder, where a needle dangled from a loose strand of white thread. “But, thanks to your lady-act, I had to do the job myself.”

“Wait.” The kid lowered his eyes – until he realized Casey, looming over him, still remained shirtless. “Oh.” He looked away while he attempted to sit up. “You … sewed yourself up?”

“Got a knife?” Casey asked, brushing off the question.

“A knife?” The kid gave him a startled look and leaned away. “Why … why do you need –”

“To cut the thread, genius.” Reaching out, Casey grabbed his elbow to keep him close. “What? Did you think I was going to gnaw it off?"

“Um, I have scissors.” Chuck tilted his head towards the work table and muttered under his breath, “Though, yes, watching you go bite yourself would be worth it.”

“Scissors. Figures it would be a lady tool,” Casey sneered, letting the last part of his brazenness slide for the moment. “On your feet.” 

Not waiting, the larger man tugged him up, though the kid still looked wobbly as hell. And now that they were face to face, Casey, half irritable over the fainting, had to do a subtle double take. He had only noticed it vaguely before, but brown eyes was a tall kid. Almost his own height. All his life, Casey could count on one hand the number of men who would even come close to looking him in the eye. Who would guess that this kid would be one of them?

“You can let go of my arm now.” Chuck wrenched his arm free and wrinkled his nose at him. “The scissors are over on the table – with the other things.”

“Well, then why are you standing there, cowboy?”

“Getting sewed up didn’t help the temper any, I see,” Chuck said, not bothering to look up as he pawed through a wooden box until he found the scissors. “Now what?”

“Sit.” Casey sat across from him, smirking at the valiant attempts Chuck made to avoid gawking at even a square inch of bare skin. “This is gonna work a hell of a lot better if you actually look at my shoulder, eh? So over here again, brown eyes. Snip it.” 

A small blob of blood oozed from the stitched up patch of skin. Unwilling to focus on it, Chuck moistened his dry throat and aimed the scissors in the vicinity of the thread. “Okay. Really. Not much blood, just a tiny bit, it’s nothing –”

“Sonova – do you have your eyes closed again, Bartowski?”

“Got it. All done.” Brown eyes peered up at him just for a second before he tossed the needle into the fireplace. “That was my part of the bargain.” 

“Bargain, eh?” Casey rubbed a hand over the scruff on his chin. “This may not work exactly like you have figured –”

“And I want to say this whole night has been – how do you guys like to put it – just a hog-killin’ good time.” Chuck climbed to his feet and put an extra log in the fire. “But I can’t help but notice the storm’s passing. I … I could pack you up with some bread or an extra blanket – how does that sound? You could hit the trail before the other, uh – disreputable characters? – hit the road. Maybe get a head start on them – oh, though I do recommend putting on a shirt before –”

Casey held up a hand. “Shut your bazoo and sit your ass down.”

“I was just –”

“Do it.”

Chuck raised his eyebrows. A battle seemed to war on his face for a moment, caught between obey or run. “Okay, fine.” Resigning himself, the kid huffed and sagged into the seat. “What is it now?”

Casey watched him, all the outward signs of jangly nerves and twitches. His smooth jaw flexed along the angle of his cheekbone, his splayed hand, with long fingers over his thigh, attempted to ease his bouncing knee. And Casey had no clue why his mind picked this second to make unwanted connections … but he wouldn’t be such a bad-looking kid with a damn haircut. 

Oh, hell.

“Still need a bandage,” he said.

“I … don’t think I have … well, I could go upstairs and see if I have an old shirt you could use.”

“Upstairs, eh? Yeah, I bet you could.” Casey narrowed his eyes at him. Sure, he seemed innocent, but there were men who trusted, and men who were fools when they misplaced their trust. With the kid getting antsy, who knew what he’d try? “Suppose you keep a pocket revolver under your shirts and pants, up there in a dresser drawer? Is that it?”

Just a flash of a guilty shock, and then his eyes flared wide. “No! I don’t … I’m not like that!”

That little shit. He did. He so did. 

All right, granted, brown eyes over there would shoot off his own … foot first, but still. It was a matter of principle now. 

“Think I should believe you, hmm?” Casey said nothing for several moments, making the kid start to squirm. That confirmed it as well. So contemplating his next move, his gaze strolled down the kid’s arms and chest, to the questioning look on his face. 

An idea struck. 

Maybe the kid needed to be taught who he was dealing with.

On the other hand … no, really he shouldn’t. It’d be wicked ... and only set off that stammering of his, or send a quick pass of a blush over his cheeks –

“Your shirt,” Casey said in a low tone, curling his fingers at the baffled kid. “Looks clean. I think that’ll do.”

“My sh – you want my … shirt?” The kid lowered his lashes, looking to the side like a trapped animal. 

“Yeah. You heard me.” Casey stole a glance down at the sleeves. “Hand it over.”

The kid pushed his fingers though his hair again, but recognizing the move for what it was – a power play by his captor – he bristled. Purposefully, Chuck stood, giving him a resolute look. “If it means getting rid of you, Mister Sew-Me-Up-and-Strip, you can have every shirt I own.” As the dull flush started on his jaw, up to his cheeks, the kid spun around and began on the buttons. “Starting with this one.” 

Sew me up and –? Heh. Did this kid ever stop to listen to himself? Casey chuckled softly at his impudence – and modesty. “You know, eventually,” he said, “you’ll have to turn around, kid.”

Chuck kept his trim physique turned from him. “I thought I already told you to go to hell, and well – look. You’re still here.”

A sharp retort was on his lips – until the kid’s arms drew taut, his body stretching to remove the shirt, his heels leaving the ground. The kid’s back and shoulders, now a mile of slender pale skin, were out in the open to study. 

“Hope that’s not your Sunday one,” Casey said after a pause, arching a brow at him. 

And if Casey didn’t enjoy fucking with his head, he’d have to openly retract the scarecrow comment, based upon the smooth angular frame that had been hiding under the shirt. True, brown eyes didn’t possess a thickly muscle torso, but what he had was rangy and long, wiry ropes bunching with tension at his shoulders and ribcage as he moved, leading down to a narrow waist and hips. 

“Huh.” City boy was pure lean flesh. 

“What?” the kid asked without turning.

“Nothing. Just keep going.”

With his back to him, Chuck stood stiffly, his head ducked, curls just long enough to be ruffling over his nape… and it only made Casey intensely curious. What was a pretty boy with wide eyes doing out in the basin alone?

“Here.” Chuck lifted the shirt over his shoulder without turning, and waved it between his fingers. “Go ahead. Take it.”

“Nuh-uh.” Casey reached out with a foot and nudged the back of his thigh. “Enough of your dramatics, sunshine. Sit down.”

The kid was far from fragile by the looks of it, but Casey couldn’t help but feel the kid’s exposure, like a bare burnt leaf, visible veins and easily crumpled, when he sent a pleading look up to the rafters.  
“What do you want now?” he asked, turning to face him with arms folded, a defiant set to his chin. “I’ll do what I can to get rid of you.”

Leaning against the arm of the sofa, the kid took a deep breath, his chest expanding, falling. The view from the front was blocked by his forearms, but it was easy to see the lines of his pecs, a sprinkling of dark hair that led to a narrow point down to his navel, and lower …. 

Casey cleared his throat. “Are you going to faint again? Because you can put your arms down, city boy, and take a seat. I have seen half naked men before.” Let him tumble that around under his tousled head. 

Chuck swallowed, obviously self-conscious, and lowered himself into the chair. “Are you going to take it?” Annoyance seeped into his voice as he held up the shirt again. “That’s what you wanted, right?”

“No.” Casey looked into his bewildered eyes and nodded at it. “Now tear it into strips and wrap it – carefully – around my shoulder and tie it off at the end.”

A shadow of reluctance crossed his face, but the kid lifted it and began to rip the top into long swathes. “I only have five shirts, you know,” he griped, starting another tear. 

“Wrong. Four. Now keep going.” 

Chuck gave him a dirty look but complied. While he worked, Casey’s gaze slid over the mysterious kid. He was trying to hide a trembling, but it was there, given away by the gleam of perspiration spreading on his neck, the way his breath came and went from his chest in short pulls.

He was frightened. For good reason. 

Leaving a bullet in that swell of flesh over his heart was not going to be the easiest thing he had done.  
Eventually, Chuck managed to get the improvised bandage tied off neatly with a few strands to spare, and sat back with his hands folded over his knees. “That’s the best I can do – under the circumstances,” he said. “Here’s your pack.”

Casey took it from him and dug around until he found a clean shirt. “You could get up and turn around, kid.” With a smug look, he motioned in a circle with his finger. “I think you’ve gotten your eyeful tonight, haven’t you?”

From the flick of his eyes, Casey knew the kid’s senses had prickled at the order, perceptibly wary of turning his back on him. As he should be.

It was a moment before Chuck climbed out of the seat and looked down, his plaintive eyes studying him. His brows lowered. “After this, will you leave?”

“Yeah,” Casey lied, a lazy smile growing on his face. “Sure, kid.”

Still not buying it – but not seeing a choice – the kid put his hands on his hips and turned, his head bowed to look at his feet. He waited.

It would take no effort at all to do it. With his back turned, his curly-headed mop pointed to the floor in oblivion, it would only take one shot. Right below the shoulder, along the fine line of bone so visible to him. So easy.

Casey let his eyes drift over his bare, slender back, down the curve of his spine, to his sloped knuckles and hands. Hands that could still be of some use, couldn’t they?

He contemplated, then picked up one of the spare swathes of fabric and twisted it between his fingers. This was going to hurt like hell, but it would take both hands and all the strength of his arms to do this. 

With no warning, Casey leaned forward and scooped up both of the kid’s wrists in one large palm. He looped the strip of fabric twice around his hands before he felt Chuck jolt and try to jerk away. “Hey! I thought you were leaving! What are you doing?” The kid pulled hopelessly on his wrists, and when that didn’t work, he lifted a heel in an attempt to kick him. “Ow!”

“And I will leave. You just didn’t ask when, kid.” 

“You bastard! Shit head!” Riding on a wave of fear and shock, the kid put up a good fight, but now that Casey saw what was under the shirt, he wasn’t quite as surprised. Still, enough of this shit. 

Casey hooked his fingers into the binding and spun him around. Fright, fury, it was all there, blasting him with an unexpected heat. Panting hard, the kid lashed out again – and that was when Casey used his good arm to toss him down into the chair, leaving his hands squished behind him. 

“You son of a bitch,” he bit out. Another useless kick swung at him. “You can’t you’re leave me like this.”

Casey was too busy tying one of the last swathes around his chest to the back of the chair to answer. But as his attention drifted over his face, to his mouth, lingered, yet another idea struck. “You know what, brown eyes? I think you’re on to something there.” 

“Wha- ngh.” 

The words broke when, with no uncertainty, he shoved the last scrap of fabric between the kid’s lips. 

“Yeah, that’s better.” Adjusting his shoulders, Casey slumped back comfortably. “Nice and quiet, eh?’  
Chuck stared at him helplessly, making a few muffled noises. Hurt brimming in his eyes. Somewhere, there was a story in the shattered gaze, and the eyes alone could almost tell it, watching his face with bottomless intensity. 

A story that he was not going to think about.

Casey closed his eyes, frowning. He was tired, that’s all. Had nothing to do with his damn kid. 

“Now just shut the hell up and get some sleep,” he said. “If you’re pissed at me tonight, well, you’ll really hate me tomorrow.” 

-x-End Chapter Three Wings of Grace-x-


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

The blunt clack of boot heels on the floor boards, moving nearer to him, cut through the fog like the first rays of sun over the ridge. Chuck didn’t want to think about those right now.

It was better to squeeze his eyes closed, letting himself get lost in the crisp air of those mornings. Ones that still made him take pause, made him stop in his tracks along the path to the barn. Watching thick bands of light send the mist rolling against the dense pine forest, opening serene views to the West …. 

Hold on. The boots. The strange man.

His blood ran cold. With consciousness came the ache at the side of his head, his dry-as-rope tongue scraping the roof of his mouth. Well. Nothing about this awakening had a damn thing in common with serenity. 

He’s … still here? 

As soon as the thought bounced between his ears, the unmistakable creak of a man’s leather holster connected with the thrumming energy of knowing that another being was within his four walls. The unexpected noise confirmed it. Chuck’s worst nightmare he’d had in months wasn’t a dream after all. 

A man in a brown coat, pointing a gun at him. Blood oozing through the wrap on his shoulder. The humiliation of taking his shirt and making a bandage from it. Now his arms ached, any feeling shut off hours ago. 

“Morning, brown eyes.” 

And then there was his voice. Calling him a name he had no right to use. More evidence that he clearly wasn’t part of the kid’s slumber.

Asshole. Bastard. Shit head. A million other names he wanted to spew out at him. 

Which he would tell him point blank – once he kindly removed the scrap of shirt stuffed deep enough in his mouth to almost tickle his throat. 

Chuck let his eyes drift open, focusing immediately on something that pissed him off even more, the cocky grin of the large man seated in front of him. He blinked a few times to clear his blurry eyes, and when the grin stayed on his face, the kid pinned the stranger with his go to hell look. Yes, the other man had the gun and maybe the upper hand, but it still felt like an ounce of vindication.

In reply, the stranger chuckled and gave his cheek a playful slap. “Don’t look at me like that.” He lowered himself to the sofa, directly in front of the chair Chuck was still tied to, and lifted a tin cup of steaming coffee to his lips. At that moment, Chuck never wanted to kick someone more than the big dick head who purposely watched his face while he took a long sip of his coffee. “Hope you don’t mind. I had to help myself to a few things while you were sleeping,” the intruder explained, smiling. “Some of this skunk piss you call coffee, for one.”

“Mmph-tph.”

“Yeah, well, here’s the thing. I don’t give a shit if your feelings are hurt, sunshine.” 

Chuck gave him an icy stare, and instead of just thinking about it, he kicked out at his shin. Unpredictably, he actually got in a few good shots until –

“Nuh-uh.” The man rolled his eyes and clamped his knees together, effectively trapping Chuck’s legs between his. Ignoring Chuck’s eyes flaring wide at this, the man cupped his jaw and steered his face up, leaning in close enough to fill his vision with nothing but brilliant blue eyes. “We’re gonna have a little talk, you and me. Well, truthfully, kid, I’ll be doing the talking, and you’ll be doing the listening part.”

Chuck eyed him, attempting to relax his stiff arms. Being wired and stupid would get him killed, and he needed to think right now – because in a few hours he would be in town, telling the authorities what this man looked like, down to the tiny scar on his cheek.

The posse would track him, too. How could this man possibly hide anywhere? The intruder easily had to be the largest person he had ever laid eyes on. Shoulders as wide as a doorway and topping out well over six feet tall, he would nearly bump his head crossing any threshold. Brown hair, neatly trimmed. Scruff on his chin. And those eyes of his. No one would forget those. The color reminded the kid of a turquoise broach his mother used to pin on her coat, but that’s where all similarities ended. The simmering fierceness in them could put an arrow through a man.

“You understand so far, brown eyes?”

“Fmck youph.” 

“I’ll take that as yes.” He chuckled and let go of his face. “Feisty. I like it.”

As soon as the man loosened his fingers, Chuck lowered his chin and had to cringe at the next observation. His own bare chest. The stranger had been up long enough to find a clean shirt in his pack for himself – how had he slept through that? – but apparently had failed to rustle one up for the person who was forced to donate his as a bandage. 

“Sonfbch.” 

“Save it.” A tap to the cheek, harder this time. “I want you to nod that you understand every word I’m saying. If you’re having a little trouble,” and the man lifted the Colt, placing the muzzle against the tip of his nose, “this might help.” 

Chuck raised both eyebrows and breathed out hard through his nose. Easy. Steady. Crapping his pants in front of a man like this would do nothing to secure his manhood, to say nothing about ruining a decent pair of britches.

So bracing himself, Chuck swallowed and stayed frozen. He felt his gut tighten, nerves vibrating, but he was proud that he held it in. 

“Really.” The stranger smirked and pressed in with the tip of the barrel. “That didn’t look like a nod, kid.”

The cold metal grazed his skin, sending a shiver down his spine. Was he going to let his own stubbornness and pride get him killed? Because whatever this stranger wanted him to agree to, it wasn’t worth dying for. This would be over soon, right? 

Glowering up at him, Chuck tipped his chin, barely perceptible. “Finph,” he muttered into the balled up fabric in his mouth. 

The man seemed to accept it, because after a few seconds, he sat back and lowered the gun. “Good … good boy.” His voice became as easy as a conversation between friends. “You see, brown eyes, there are gonna be a few rules while I’m here. This home of yours, the run-down shanty that it is, will serve a purpose for me. I happen to need a place to stay – oh, don’t worry, I can see by that look it bothers you, but it won’t be long and you won’t even know I’m here.” The man paused to take another drink of coffee – his coffee – from his tin cup. “There might be a few men looking for me, and I’d rather they not find me. Still following all of this, kid?”

Stay here? “Mmph!” Chuck showed him what he thought of that by freeing his knees to kick him again.

“Easy, tiger.” The man clamped down harder, just enough to work a small wince from him. “And before you ask, the reason is none of your damn business.” 

The dialogue from the night before was a little fuzzy, but that explanation seemed to be his go-to answer for everything. But the kid couldn’t be bothered with his ambiguity at the moment. His overriding priority was his legs being squished between what felt like two steel posts. 

“Owph.” Sucking in a harsh breath, Chuck relaxed his thighs. “Okayph!”

“Still listening, city boy?” The stranger released his knees and sat back. “First rule, keep your damn mouth shut. No one needs to know I’m here. Though … I’m wondering how much of a problem that will be for you.” As he lowered the cup, a speculative look spread on his face. “Why are you out here by yourself, kid?” He paused, winking at him before taking another drink. “You don’t have to answer that. But I’m not done yet.”

That wasn’t enough? Chuck gave him the stink-eye, telling him what he thought of his rules so far.

“I can see you’ve got that one. You seem to be a smart boy, so I think you’ll get the next few. Another one: don’t fucking lie to me. When I ask you something, answer me.” He turned to set the coffee down and tapped a finger on Chuck’s knee. “This is the way it’ll be in order for us to get along … for few days, hmm?”

“Fewph danngk?! Nuh-uh.”

“Yeah, well, look at this dump.” Frowning, the stranger made a point of scanning Chuck’s kitchen and sitting area. “How do you think I feel, princess? Okay, where was I? Here’s another. Do not even think about trying to skip out under my nose … let someone know you have an unwelcome house guest?” Leaning forward with an intimidating stare, the stranger’s jaw hardened. “That would just piss me off to no end.” 

The prickling of his skin along his bare back told Chuck the man did not take kindly to being pissed off.

“Can we strike a bargain, boyo?” Since Chuck didn’t nod or move, the man pressed in with his fingers on his cheeks one more time, the iron grip digging into sensitive flesh. “Are we … gonna be friends?” he asked, his voice calm, precise. “Nod for me.”

Chuck looked to the side, which did absolutely nothing to wipe out the image of the hugely frightening man in front of him. Because what choice did he have like this? His arms had lost feeling hours ago and his mouth tasted like a dry dirty sock. Not that he had ever tasted one.

A deep breath, and the kid ducked his head, just once, one reluctant nod of agreement. 

For now, you asshole.

The man grunted. “Heh. Tell it to someone who gives a shit.” As he lowered his gaze to the rag stuffed in his mouth, lingered there, the man’s eyes darkened with solemnity again. “But here’s something for you to think about. I’m only keeping you around because I think you might come in handy. Maybe make some use of your scrawny ass.” He glanced down at his wounded arm to ensure Chuck got the message. “If you decide not to be useful, the rules of the game will change.” And not waiting for further agreement or guff, he yanked out the gag that had been stuffed between Chuck’s teeth. “For the record, this isn’t an invitation for your chatter.”

“Gah.” The kid groaned at the release and made a face at him. Chatter? He couldn’t if he wanted to. Wasn’t it just his luck that the one time he needed to let out a good swear, his voice sounded more like an angry crow than a man?

While he worked up some saliva, enabling him to tell this bastard exactly what he thought about their new living arrangements, his eyes roamed over the intruder. Shouldn’t he get a good look at what he was up against? So he did, taking in the sight of a broad chest, thick upper arms, ropes of muscles bunching under his skin as he moved, the epitome of dangerous grace –

– and Chuck made a snap decision. Plan B climbed to the forefront, because any thoughts of overpowering the big dope would most likely get his head crammed into the water basin until he cried uncle. 

Not that he wanted to belabor the point, but being drowned in his own kitchen sink was not a pleasant image. 

Okay, okay. Chuck wet his throat and glared at the giant. The man may have – well, all of that going for him, but what did he have? Brains. Smarts. An analytical mind.

And long legs. That had to count for something. 

“If … blech … it’s not too much trouble for you, maybe you could set down my coffee and untie my shirt from my hands.”

“Chin up, city boy. I didn’t take your skivvies, did I?”

“Geez. Thanks.” Chuck had halfway looked down to check, however, because he wouldn’t put it past him. “Well? A little help here?”

He shrugged, taking his time to polish off the coffee before moving behind him. “Demanding little bastard, aren’t ya?”

“Me? I’m demanding? You’re the one who – ah!” A warm hand collared Chuck’s neck from behind and forced his head down to his knees. Instinctively, he tried to fight it, but that did about as good as a water bug under a boot. “What’re you –”

“Jesus. Stop your bitching – and your squirming while you’re at it.” The giant’s hand tightened, sliding through his thick hair and holding him. “I’m trying to get your hands,” he told him. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? Now hold still so I can – there.”

“Ow, ow, ow….” Chuck closed his hand on one wrist and then the other – rubbing, stretching, anything to get the blood moving. “Asshole,” he mumbled as the other man turned to the side, grabbing something off the back of the chair. “I can’t believe you left me like –”

“Here. Put this on.”

“What?” Chuck turned as a shirt was tossed into his face. Scrambling, he kept it from hitting the floor, but only by just that much. He held it by the sleeves, getting a good look at the garment, and the kid’s face clouded up. “Where did you get this?”

“Put it on,” the man said in the way of an answer. “Whining for a shirt, weren’t ya? There.”

“Hang on.” Chuck rose out of the chair, bringing himself nearly eye to eye with the criminal. The embarrassment of being half-naked in front of him was replaced with a sense of being even further violated. He lifted his chin and met his stare. “You went through my … things? You went upstairs?”

“No, it wasn’t like that, princess. I snapped my fingers, the sleeves flapped like fucking wings, and it flew out of your drawers and landed in my hand.”

“You son of a bitch. You did! You had no right to – where did you get that.” When he caught sight of the stranger’s palm, the kid’s hands curled into fists, knuckles turning white. Oh, God. Anything but that. “I … I don’t think that belongs to –”

“Knew you’d have one of these somewhere.” The man’s eyes narrowed. Deliberately, he whirled the tiny ivory-handled pocket revolver on his finger. Looping around once, then again. Just tempting Chuck to even think about making a grab for it. “Funny thing I learned, kid. When you find someone who thinks they’ll never shoot a gun, that they never need to defend themselves – well, they always have one of these tucked away somewhere. Always.” He studied him and then caught the gun in his palm with a snap. “Figured you’d be one of them since you had that toy gun to protect yourself. Looks like I was right, eh?”

Chuck just gave him an aggravated look. “Can you leave? Please.”

At the plea out of the blue, he raised a brow at the kid. Then he laughed softly. “I like you, brown eyes. Now why don’t you figure out what you have to eat in this place?”

“You want me … to make you something?” While Chuck buttoned the shirt and inched backwards, he couldn’t help but wish the man would drop the pocket revolver. Though the plan after he had it in his hand was a bit fuzzy. But still, please drop it. 

“You know, food?” The man brought up his hand to his mouth, pretending to eat, as if he was dealing with a dimwit. “Chow? Grub? Victuals? What do ya have, cub?”

“I … guess I have … some eggs. Maybe some bread … and potatoes?” Chuck tilted his head at him and gave the man a strange look. “You were serious? You’re really going to stay … here?”

The man glanced at the shelf over the wood stove and shook his head. “Meat?” 

“Pardon?”

“Christ. I hope this isn’t how the whole week is going to go, kid.” The intruder’s mile-wide chest expanded with a huff. “I’m asking you what kind of meat you’re gonna serve up.”

Chuck drew his brows down in confusion at the man’s smirk. He felt like he’d been dumped in the middle of a bad dream, one that had placed a tall famished colossus in his kitchen. “I don’t have much,” he replied, perturbed at his new role of fry cook. “There’s a barrel of salt pork in the cold cellar. But it’s almost empty, so if you’re looking for food, maybe you should –”

“Get it,” the man broke in, taking a seat at the table. “Saw you have chickens, so I’m sure you have eggs. Bread too while you’re at it.” 

Chuck’s reply was to scowl even deeper. Should he just tell him to go to hell? Shit. And get him angry? Or just feed him and hopefully he’ll leave? 

Wavering, he finally made up his mind. Putting on an act of obedience might get rid of him. “Fine.” Chuck shuffled onto his feet a bit defensively. “Oh, don’t get up. Let me handle it.” 

The man grunted. He seemed to do that a lot, the kid vaguely noticed. 

Chuck bit his tongue and turned away – but the stranger put an arm out to buttonhole him. “Hold on. Look at me.” The kid’s startled eyes traveled down, and when they landed on the revolver, the man made a show of tucking the weapon away in his own pocket. “Don’t lose your way, boyo. Just the cold cellar. Nowhere else. Wouldn’t want an accident to happen.”

Chuck felt a chill from the insinuation. “Go to hell,” he said under his breath. God, his mouth was going to get him in trouble, but his reserves were low and his nerves jangled. Still, he had to be smarter than that. So softening his voice, he nodded at the shelf. “You could get the bread from the tin. That would help.”

And before the man could glare him down to a pile of ashes for both suggestions, he high-tailed it to the cold cellar. 

When Chuck returned a minute later with a hunk of salt pork, the bread sat on a plate in the middle of the table. Oh, nice. Wasn’t he just a big fun anomaly of cooperation and terror? 

“Anything to drink?” the stranger asked.

“Water.”

“Anything harder,” he wondered, sounding annoyed that he had to explain it.

Chuck gave him a curious look while he gathered up the eggs and butter. “Uh, it’s breakfast?” 

“Your point?”

The kid shook his head. “I don’t have fresh milk right now, either, before you complain about that.”

“Christ. Figures,” he said. “Just get moving on the vittles.” 

Working at the stove wasn’t what Chuck would call his strong suit to start with, and having an audience while he cooked made him jittery. But while the man watched him with those cool-as-ice eyes of his, Chuck managed to put together what he thought was a decent – okay, meager – breakfast. 

“Here.” The plate slid over table top. “Anything else … before you leave?”

Fried eggs, sunny side up. A thick slice of bread and pork. Eyeing the nourishment, Chuck swallowed down the sudden hunger pang that started in the vicinity of his hollow toes. Dinner last night seemed weeks ago. 

The man glanced up at him and then examined the food, making Chuck wonder if he thought he had poisoned him. After a few seconds, his hands smoothed over the muscles of his neck, and he shook his head at the kid. “Sit,” the man said, picking up a fork.

“What?”

“Is this really the way it’s gotta be with you, kid? I said sit your ass down. You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes, I could –”

“Then stop hovering over me with that look on your face and get a damn plate.”

Warily, Chuck considered his chair on the other side of the table. Though hunger swam with tension in his stomach – he was officially a hostage in this scenario, wasn’t he? – he was a hungry one. 

“Nice of you to share your breakfast,” he remarked, but the kid wasted no time filling a plate and taking the empty chair across from him. “And for clarity, I think pork is meat.”

“Stow it. Eat.”

For once, Chuck figured that this was not the time to argue, and he dug in. The thick quiet was broken only by the scrape of forks on the plates, or one of the chairs sliding back a few inches. Then the wood in the stove smoldering, crackling. 

Had anyone ever sat with him at this table? What in the world should he talk about with the man? Knock off any banks lately? So what did you do to have a posse on your trail? Or maybe –

“What the hell are you looking at?” 

Chuck blinked. “I’m, uh, nothing. I was just wondering … well … never mind. It’s not really –”

“Spit it out.” Impatience coursed over his expression. He set down his fork and sat taller in his chair, peering at him. “You’re staring. And I don’t like it.”

The kid dithered, telling himself he should not say it, really he shouldn’t, but his own voice interrupted his thoughts by blurting it out. “I was only asking myself if Casey is a first name or a last name – gah!”

His fork went flying. Worse, the strong fingers around his wrist tightened, making him cringe under the unbearable pressure. Even that wasn’t Chuck’s primary worry. It was this: he was quite fond of that arm as a whole, and right now, the man didn’t seem likely to give it back to him. At least not in one piece. 

“Where did you hear that?” The stranger’s voice, stern, implacable, went straight to the kid’s brain. He twisted on Chuck’s wrist until the kid shut his eyes. “Tell me.”

Adrenaline surged through him at the voice of fury. The kid dug his fingernails into his palm, focusing completely on biting back the knife’s edge of pain. “I saw it on the pocket watch,” he breathed. “The one in your saddle pack.”

“… the hell? What are you talking about? Answer me.”

“Oh. Ow.” Chuck picked up the pace. “Okay. You asked me to get your pants. I couldn’t … help it. There’s a name etched in the hunter-case. I didn’t mean to look at it. I wasn’t being nosy or anything like that! Please.”

The man let out a slow breath. It took much too long in Chuck’s estimation, but the firm, possessive hold loosened just a bit. “What else aren’t you telling me?” he asked. “Look at my face. Do you know me?”

“Please, it’s an arm, not a crank or a handle or anything.” Chuck swallowed, darting a look down at the fingers still clenched into his flesh. “I did not mean – really … you’re hurting me.”

A long moment stretched while he seemed to weigh his captive’s motives. Then slowly – very slowly – the man let go of his arm.

“Kid, I don’t think you could lie without your teeth falling out,” he observed coolly. “You really have no idea, do you?”

“Um, if I say yes, I’m not agreeing to the teeth thing. I could lie if I wanted to, I just choose not to –”

Another grunt. That one sounded like disbelief. “Shut up and eat.”

There were about twelve snappy retorts ready to roll off his tongue. But as he seethed, the kid’s gaze drifted down to the bulkiest chest he had ever laid eyes on – truly, his shirt was taut enough for the fabric to suffer – and though he was pissed at being ordered around like a child, Chuck figured perhaps he was too hungry to argue. Maybe later, after he had sustenance. Then he’d tell him to go fuck himself.

Or something like that, anyway. 

Chuck dug his fork into the eggs, still glaring at his unjustly huge jailer. “I have another question for you.”

“And I have to remind you what I said about questions, kid.”

“So, Casey … is that really your name?”

“Why do you have to –”

“Because, if you think about it, the fact is that Casey is a name that brings up a myriad of options.”

“Myriad?”

Chuck contemplated the question while he chewed. “You know, countless? Limitless? Or innumerable, I suppose if that –”

“I know what it means, school boy,” the stranger cut in. “What I meant was for you to shut your –”

“Because, if you think about it, is Casey a first name or a last name? It’s one of those interchangeable designations. Now, if it’s a first name, –”

“See this? I’m about two seconds away from stuffing this piece of bread –”

“Well, you’d have to ask yourself, is Casey a diminutive of Cassidy? Casilda? Though it would be a bit odd for a man – especially, well, you know, you.” Chuck waved a piece of pork in his direction, across the width of his chest. “Maybe Casimer, Cassivellaunus, or Casiphia?”

“I’m gonna find that piece of your shirt again, and when I do, I’m gonna shove it so far down your –”

“– the Greek derivative for fountain of purity, or –”

“Purity? Heh.”

“– the Gaelic form, but that would mean – mmph!”

The man leaned over the table. He had to, now that his enormous paw was pressed to Chuck’s mouth. “Brown eyes?” he said, staring into them.

“Hmph.” Chuck tried to jerk his head back. That only made the man dig his fingers in harder. “Owph!”

“Glad I have your attention, because I’m only going to say this once,” he rumbled, a steely glint filling his eyes. “John Casey. It means vigilant. Wakeful. And considering your current status, kid, that’s going to be a handy one for you to stuff under that mop of yours for the next few days.” His lips became rigid, and so did his hand over his mouth. “It also means that this is the end of this fucking conversation. Nod that you heard me this time.”

Chuck withheld the urge to try and kick him again, knowing where that would get him. Feigned compliance, he had to remind himself. Then he’d get out of there. He’d been holding his breath, but he clenched his teeth and nodded. 

“Knew you had it in you,” Casey said, lowering himself to his seat and removing his hand. “Now put a muzzle on it.”

“Sheesh.” Chuck wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Just trying to make conversation.” 

“Well, stop doing that.”

Knowing that he had pushed him as far as he could, he shut up. Then, about two minutes later and still without a word, he reached into his pocket and slid something across the table.

“Here.” 

“What is it?” Casey asked, eyeing his hand.

“Your pocket watch. Actually, I lied.” Chuck felt himself blush at the admission. “I took it from your pack last night.” 

Casey stared at him, then the watch, before swiping it from the table. “You damn little thief.”

“Thief. Me?” The accusation snapped the kid’s spine straight. “I’ve never stolen a thing in my life, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that one of us at the table can make that claim.” He gave Casey a hard look at the irony. “I only took it for … well, I probably shouldn’t – so just never mind.”

“Never mind?” Casey swiped the last piece of bread and picked up his knife. “I gotta tell ya, kid, you have the dandiest sense of when you should shut up and when you should talk. Say it. Took it for what?”

“Uh, well … evidence, okay?” Chuck pushed a hand through his hair, knowing that no matter how long he kept his gaze down, eventually he would have to look into a pair of sea-colored eyes. “When you’re gone … maybe someone could use it to track you.” 

“Then why did you give it back?” the man asked suspiciously. 

I couldn’t take it. 

“I don’t need it anymore,” he admitted quietly, hating the man for looking at him like that. “You told me your name. That’s what I needed to know.”

-x-

“Getting tired of my company already, sunshine?” He stood in his path with arms folded over his chest, heightening his daunting physique. “Because do you mind telling me where the hell you think you’re going?”

Chuck cocked his head in surprise. How did he do that? Only a minute ago the man was sitting in the chair, griping while Chuck changed the bandage. 

And now? Hell-oh. The narrowed look alone could stop the kid in his tracks – if the forty pounds of muscle he had on him didn’t do it first. 

“Okaaay, then,” Chuck said, backing up a step from the formidable roadblock. “I guess you’re trying to make a point here. Reminding me of my current status, as you put it?” He lifted his head to give the man a mutinous look. “But I have chores to do. I’m sure you snooped around my home and went into the barn? Which means you know I have animals that need feeding. And unless you plan letting them starve, or you’re taking care of them yourself, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me do my job – oh. There you are.” 

Casey followed the kid’s line of sight. Then he lifted a brow at him. “Buddy, I presume?”

At first, Chuck went silent, his expression puzzled. But somewhere in the craziness of the night before, between a gun being aimed at him, getting knocked out and fainting, he had mentioned the cat’s name. 

Oh, great. So Casey is a stickler for details, too. 

The kid picked up the large white and grey feline, absently stroking his fur. “Yes … though, it was probably the mention of feeding time that brought him out. He doesn’t really come when you call him.”

Chuck averted his eyes to the stranger and a flush spread over his cheeks. He hadn’t expected to see the man watching his face so keenly, and somewhere behind the impossible depth of his eyes, lay a question. 

He didn’t get it, that’s all. He didn’t know what being totally isolated would do to a man.

“So?” Chuck cleared his throat and let the cat jump down from his arms. “Can we go?”

A muscle twitched in his cheek. It took a moment before Casey lifted his shoulder, shrugging. “I guess I’ll get my coat.”

-x-

When the barn door swung open, Chuck didn’t pay much attention to the small flock of chickens he sent scurrying. As always, the noise brought the barn to life, reminding him he wasn’t completely alone. Sort of, anyway, since he had to count chickens and a cow that barely gave milk as companionship. 

With muscles aching, Chuck hauled fresh water from the well and scooped feed from the barrel, surveying how many more days he could get by before he would need to either barter or go into his reserves. He hated having to do that, dreading a day where the jobs that got him from season to season would dry up. Then what?

But today, Chuck decided he had bigger worries. How could he even think when he was being watched like this? Because being held under the gaze of this man – John Casey? – warmed the back of his neck, to say nothing of the twisted ball of wool in his stomach. 

The kid ducked his head while he filled the last pail, glancing sidelong at him. Of course, he didn’t offer to help. Instead, Casey leaned against one of the posts, his coat buttoned thanks to the cool morning air, and toed at the loose straw every now and again. Seemingly lost in his thoughts for a minute.

Not passing up an opportunity to give his captor a once-over without being observed, Chuck did just that. He had the bluest eyes imaginable, even in the dimness of the barn. The coat did nothing to hide the points of his broad shoulders, the slope of his chest. Or his hard-muscled frame ….

Oh, no, no, no. Chuck, realizing his faux pas, turned away. Why was he thinking this?! Ridiculous. The man would kill you if you let him, idiot. Shaking his head at his own stupidity, he topped off the pail and stood, trying to clear his mind of anything besides –

“Vic needs some of that grain.”

“Oh. Um, grain?” Chuck spun around to face him. “What?”

“Vic,” Casey repeated, as if this was obvious.

The kid angled his head at him. “I’m not exactly –”

“My horse.” Pushing off from the post, Casey jabbed his thumb towards the last stall. “Whatever you have to spare.” 

Odd choice of words. Not that he wanted to quibble, but they both knew he had nothing to spare. “I guess I’ll just get him –”

“Her.”

“Oh. I didn’t ….” He let that trail off before he humiliated himself. “Well. Or her something from Jackson’s bin.”

Casey arched a brow. “Who?” 

“Jackson.” A little shame-faced, Chuck rubbed the back of his neck and wandered down to the end of the barn. He heard boots in the straw behind him, so he didn’t bother looking back. “The man who sold him to me had a soft place in his heart for the, uh, Confederate general,” the kid explained over his shoulder.

“Traitors,” he heard the stranger say.

“Well, affiliations aside, there he is.” Chuck came to a halt in front of the last stall. “Hey, Jack.”

“Jack?”

“His full name Stonewall Jackson, and I wanted to change it … but you can see he looks pretty set in his ways.” 

Casey pushed his hat back on his head, resting his forearm over the top rail with a boot on the lower slat. He stared at the beast, and for some reason, his teeth sunk into his lip. “Oh, hell,” the man at last muttered.

“What?”

“Brown eyes?” Casey didn’t shift his gaze from the weathered steed. “That horse looks like he was in the valley campaign with Jackson.” He lifted a hand to poke Jack’s chest. “I’ve never seen such a piece of crow bait like this one west of the Mississippi. Je-zus. Is it real or stuffed is the real question, eh?”

Chuck’s shoulders stiffened. The last thing he expected – besides the whole hostage in his own home thing – was the man attempting to crack a joke. Even it if was at his expense.

“He’s … well, I prefer to think of it as gentle and even-tempered.” Miffed, Chuck dumped the food in the bucket, which immediately got a reaction and disproved the whole ‘taxidermy gone wrong’ theory. “Yeah, there you go,” he murmured, giving the animal a crooked smile. “The man said he would be a good horse for me – well, he used the word greenhorn, but still.”

At greenhorn, the kid heard another one of those deep noises, this one blended with a snicker. 

Ignoring the sardonic grunt, Chuck filled another pail and headed down to the stall where he guessed Vic was waiting. Just perfect. Now he was relegated to feeding the man’s freaking horse. 

The thought made him roll his eyes – until he opened the gate. “Whoa. All right,” Chuck said. “I guess that’s a nice horse … if you like that sort of thing.”

And who wouldn’t? The brown and white paint, waiting impatiently and stomping a hoof, made him stare. With her sleek and muscled chest and legs, she was the living essence of brawn and tenacity. A beautiful specimen. Face it. She was a mirror image of the man.

Wait, did he just –

“Well? Gonna stand there?” Casey asked.

“I … was just ….” Chuck took a step closer. “Hey, girl,” he said, keeping his voice quiet, soothing. “Do you want – ah.”

“Jesus Fucking Christ.” Every part of the kid jolted as a strong fist grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled, forcing him to stumble. “Stand back, city boy. What the hell is wrong with you? She’ll put a hoof through your chest without batting an eye, or … Vic.” 

“Or … what?” Chuck petted her nose again with a tentative hand, her fur bristly but soft under his palm. He had to smile when the paint pushed her muzzle into the fold of his worn coat, sniffing into the pockets. “Looking for snacks, are you?”

Behind him, Casey muttered something under his breath but didn’t try to stop him from getting closer this time.

“Good, girl,” Chuck whispered, dragging a hand along her smooth neck. “Sorry, I don’t have anything in there, but I bet this is what you’re looking for.” He set the bucket down and stood back, letting the horse move her nose to the pail. “Wow. You were hungry, hmm, lady?”

As he leaned against the post and watched, the man said nothing. Still, the kid felt the familiar pinpricks of the stranger’s eyes, the same uneasy heat along his neck. Now what?

Chuck glanced at him and wet his lips. He tried to stop it, but the habit of talking when he was nervous kicked in. “Is there … something wrong?”

Only for a split second, Casey looked stumped. Then he straightened, twirled a piece of straw between his fingers, and gave the kid an aloof squint. 

“Usually she’s a better judge of character, that’s all,” he grumbled. “She never lets anyone else get that close.”

-x-

Casey’s eyes rested on Chuck’s back as they left the barn, not really looking at the tan coat with a small tear in the shoulder, or his narrow waist. Nor the way his slender, gawky build moved under the coat.

Ah, shit. This was a mistake. Tender mercies were dangerous, made him weak. So Casey did what he always did, and put up a wall in his mind. 

For this particular exit strategy, it wasn’t … quite working. 

He took his eyes off the city boy for a minute, convincing himself to commit the deed, no matter how unpleasant. He had to stop thinking about this gangly kid as a person. The awkward young man was a means to an end. It was clear what he had to do. Tie up any loose details, clean up, return to Black Rock. 

Simple. 

The thought lingered, even as he became aware that Chuck was coming to stop along the grassy path that led back to the cabin. He followed the kid’s line of sight to rows of turned black dirt, the beginnings of a small but well-laid out garden. 

“Oh, crap. They’re back.”

“Who’s back?” Casey gave a quick jerk of his head up the path, but seeing that they were alone, he rounded on the kid. “What are you talking about?”

Chuck had kneeled between one of the rows, brushing his hands over the spindles of onions and what was left of the first spears of lettuce breaking through the earth. “The rabbits,” he huffed. “Dammit.”

“Rabbits?”

As an answer, Chuck shrugged, settling back on his haunches to survey the other rows. “I’ll have to build a fence.”

“A fence.” Casey snorted. “You have what you need to get rid of them, kid. Hell, even if it is a pea-shooter. Who knows? Could put some meat on your table.” He lowered his voice, adding, “And your bones for that matter.”

Son of a bitch. Get a grip, Casey told himself, shoving his hands in his pockets. Why on earth was he dispensing advice to a dead man? 

“Boy, I wonder what I’ve done all this time without your help.” Chuck tipped his head up at him, his brown eyes catching the sunlight. Now serious. “You of all people may have noticed that my aim is a little off,” he said, tossing a small stone he had picked up. “I think they know they’re pretty safe here. So after you leave, which I’m hoping is sooner rather than later, I’ll build the fence.”

After he leaves. The ooze of guilt stirred in his gut. Of all places, he shouldn’t have stopped here. If he had any sense at all, he’d end this now. Put a bullet in those dark curls at his temple in the next thirty seconds, leave his body on the cool earth between the between the fledgling rows.

Casey focused on the back of his head, his hunched shoulders, watching the kid lower his eyes again. Displeasure with him ratcheted up when all he felt were his hands going deeper into his pockets – instead of reaching for the Colt. 

Oh, hell. Call him a fucking idiot … but it was too soon. So what if the kid could barely boil coffee water. His shoulder would need to be bandaged, the horses tended to, and despite his outward appearance of general cluelessness, the kid had proven to be useful. 

“Hey.” When Chuck didn’t look up, Casey tapped his back – without looking at the smooth curve of his neck. “Let’s go. Don’t want to be out here in the open like this.” 

So maybe not now. Not until he had no other choice. Then he would do it.

-x-

“I suppose, after the conversation out in garden and this morning, it would be too much to ask for meat for supper?”

Chuck looked up from the stove to slant him a dirty look. “Are you comfortable?” he asked, mock concern dripping from his voice. “Extra pillow or blanket, perhaps?”

Casey leaned back on the settee, stretching his legs across the cushions. Where did he expect him to sit while he waited for the kid to spark up the stove? “Cork your bitching. At least I took off my boots off. So I’ll ask it again, princess. Still no meat?” 

To his amusement, Chuck reddened. “Well, I … I found some beans already cooked. And there were still some of the parsnips left from last night, so I thought you might –”

“Ah, hells bells, boyo.” Casey dragged a hand over his cheek in irritation. “Before you wind up, shut up. Parsnips? Eh. Didn’t I see a few chickens out roaming in your yard?” Reaching for his gun, Casey started to get up. “Stay put. I’ll be back in a minute. I don’t suppose you got an axe, kid?”

“Are you … they’re laying hens!” Chuck sputtered, and it took him about a half second to round the table, still holding his damn vegetable pot. “You can’t …. You wouldn’t dare.”

Casey’s attention drifted over his shocked face, envisioning how easy it would be. But begrudgingly, he took a seat at the table. “Fine,” he said. “But tomorrow, get ready, sunshine. We’re going hunting.”

Hunting. Alone in the woods, just far enough from home. At the end, he’d force him to turn his back, get on his knees. Sure, he’ll make it easy for him. Quick and dirty and gone.

That’s how it’ll happen. 

By the time Casey started out of his thoughts, he noticed Chuck had paused at the table. Staring at him. Like those dark eyes had slipped into his soul and read his mind. 

“No thanks,” the kid replied, his voice dry. “You might’ve noticed, but I’m not very good with guns, and for the safety of myself and others, I’ve decided to stay away from anything that might take off a foot, or a –”

“You’re going,” Casey ordered, eying the beans and bread Chuck had begun doling out. “Sorry, cupcake, but I can’t leave you alone here, now, can I? Besides, do you think I’m a dolt? Do you really think I’m going to give you a loaded gun and take you into the woods with me? I’ll be hunting. You’ll be carrying the plunder. Got that?”

Chuck wrinkled his nose as he sat at the table. “If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll hang back. You know, do man-servant things. Maybe wash your shirts while you’re gone? Oh. I’ve got it. I could go into town and get your supplies – anything you need for the road, and realllly it’s on me. No need to reach for your money belt.”

Casey gave him an eye roll in exchange for the sarcasm. “God, out of all the farms, I pick the one with a smart-mouth kid.” He tilted his head and eyed the kid shrewdly. “Bet you wish I found another too, eh, city boy?”

Instead of the smart-aleck comment that Casey expected, the kid baffled him by clamming up for the longest time. Just the sound of the wood hissing in the stove, the fire dying. 

“No,” Chuck finally said, his voice quiet. He licked his lips, forcing the rest of the words past his throat. “No … I don’t wish that at all.”

“Is that so?” Casey stopped chewing just to scrutinize this crazy boy. “Why?”

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” The kid put his fork down. “The other farms – over the ridge …. They have families. Sisters and mothers. Children.” Casey watched as he swallowed, his pale tender throat bobbing with nervousness. “If it has to be someone, I guess it should be me.”

And in the words, under the husky fear in his voice, Casey heard one resounding truth. He knows. 

Like strong, firm fingers at the base of his ribcage, he felt his innards compress, shoving air out of his lungs. Who expected humble dignity from a scrawny snot-nose like this one?

Then Casey got a hold of himself. Looking away from eyes that left him feeling exposed, he brushed it off, blaming the city boy for his undercooked parsnips. 

This was his fault. Nothing more than the kid being a nuisance.

“I know … under these circumstances that I probably don’t have the right to ask this, but I can’t help but notice ... why are you looking at me like that?”

“Not looking at you, princess.” Casey’s gaze cut to Chuck’s hands resting on the table, for the kid was rubbing his fingers over his knuckles absently, as if he had forgotten that there was food in front of him. Nervous gestures and tell-tale eyes. The kid gave away everything, didn’t he? 

“Really? Because I swear, John, right then, you were doing this thing with –”

“God.” Casey moved his knees under the table, far enough until they hit something bony and firm. “Just shut up and eat,” he warned, “or I’ll stash you in the barn with that half-dead stuffed horse of yours for the night.” 

-x- End On Wings of Thieves and Dreams Chapter Four-x-


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Casey glanced at the clock on the mantle. Seven eighteen. Two minutes later than the last time he had checked. He blew out a deep breath, tucked away the Colt and grabbed the cleaning cloth. Jesus fucking Christ. Maybe it was too much to ask for, but what did a man do for some fun in this joint?

He went back to rolling up the cleaning cloth.

Well, there’s that. Watching the kid eat seemed to be the night’s only entertainment. After chasing the food around on his plate without really looking at it, Chuck at last dug in and slowly began polishing off the parsnips and bread. Whatever was going through his head – and God knows what he had picked up on – it turned his eyes dark, hidden. Perhaps it was just a desperate need to rid his home of an unwanted visitor, but at least the kid was quiet for once.

And for once, Casey didn’t appreciate the silence. It forced his thoughts to wander, and right now, he shouldn’t have to think about tomorrow and a game-ending hunting trip. Not just yet. 

Why should he? Delicious heat radiated from the cast iron stove, and Casey lengthened his legs under the table, leaning back in his chair with muscles unwinding. It felt … good. Inadvertently, his calf grazed Chuck’s knee. He wasn’t eager to move it on his account, so he ignored the warm but hard accident and left his leg right there. 

The kid wasn’t as agreeable. The opposite, in fact. On contact, he shifted his leg, looking up with an annoyed expression. “I can get up from the table if you don’t have enough room.”

“Only if you’re getting up to get me some whiskey,” Casey replied, now that he had his attention. “Or is that asking too much?” He wobbled a glass in front of him. “Not much left in my own stash.”

When the kid frowned at him and put down his fork, Casey couldn’t help but notice Chuck’s hands. He talked with them, another entire language; grazing his knuckles or pulling on his fingers while he spoke, fluttering in front of his face. Not the palms of a cowhand with years of rope burn and abuse. His were sure, unblemished and deft, though Casey figured he had no clue how to use them. 

“You’re wrong, you know,” the kid said out of the blue. As Casey’s focus lingered, Chuck’s long fingers curled, becoming fists. 

“Wrong. Yeah, about what?” He raised a skeptical brow and took a bite from an apple he had helped himself to. “’Cause I’m hardly ever wrong, city boy.”

“About me.” His hands smoothed over wiry muscles at the back of his neck. “That ... this life I have is pathetic – it’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?

He should back out of this and go to bed. In the harsh light of day tomorrow, he was going wish he never finished this conversation. But the way Chuck watched him, waiting for an answer, made something oily and black grow in his gut. There was no sense in arguing, since the kid was right.

“Pathetic.” Casey grunted. “This place would need vast improvement, maybe decked out with pie and give a decent blow job, before it’s pathetic.” With a bored look, he rocked the nearly empty whiskey glass between his fingers. “And finding you here, kid? I’ve never met anyone … well, as far from home as you are.”

“Blow j– Did you just –” Blushing like fire, Chuck jerked his head back at the insult, his eyes going from cool to slow burn. “You arrogant son of a – you don’t know the first thing about me. Where I came from –”

“Boston. You already let that slip.”

“Okay, I … fine. Or why I’m here.” The kid sat back and folded his arms over his chest. “So I’d appreciate it if you left your judgments on the other side of the table.”

“Mouthy one, aren’t ya?” Casey observed coolly. “Well, brown eyes – under one condition.” 

“That you’ll stop calling me that?”

Casey tucked his tongue in his cheek, enjoying the pleasant scorch of the last swig. “No. ‘Fraid you’re stuck with the name. What I meant was that you need to leave your damn judgments of me over there.”

“That’s fair, I guess. A deal.” Chuck picked up the fork and rolled it between his fingers, thumb sliding back and forth, more of those nervous gestures. “So who shot you?”

“That’s still none of your damn business.”

“I wasn’t judging. I was asking,” he mumbled, tearing a piece from the bread.

“Well, let’s just say … another man with aim almost as bad as yours.”

“Maybe you should consider another line of work?” Chuck, unfazed by the little dig on his marksmanship, arched a brow. “Considering that this one got you shot at twice in one day? The way I see it, most people have jobs where shooting is, well, illegal. People like me? I’ve gone twenty-six years without anyone pointing a gun in my face.”

“Yeah?” Casey chuckled softly. “Hated to be the one to break that streak, cupcake.”

The kid tilted his head at him. “Did I tell you that my name is Chuck? Not that I expect Charles, or anything formal, but –”

“Did I tell you I don’t give a shit?” Casey cut in, swiping the last piece of bread. “I don’t need your pontificating –”

“Pontif – whoa. Big word for a man who doesn’t like to –”

“And I thought you were to keep your trap – shit.” The sudden weight of something pressing on Casey’s lap made him tense. Just as he looked down, a pair of green eyes and a bundle of white and grey fur came into view. “… the hell is this?” Casey asked. “Is this your fu –”

“Cat.” Puzzled, Chuck straightened and reached over to swat gently at the feline. “Buddy, get down.”

Buddy listened as well as city boy, apparently. When the large cat sniffed the whiskey glass and bounded backwards, the corner of Casey’s mouth curved up. “Not that,” he said, “But you’re welcome to the damn parsnips.”

“Really, Buddy.” Chuck leaned over the table as he tried to dislodge the animal. “You traitor,” he muttered and wrinkled his nose. “Usually he’s a much better judge of character.” A smart-alecky smile came with his own words thrown back at him. “Did I get that right?”

Casey cleared his throat. “Keep Vic out of this. And I hate to break it to you, pumpkin, but this animal’s only interested in who will let him eat off the plate.”

“That’s not true; he likes lots of other – well, okay.” Bunching his lips, he dithered, getting ready to say something else. And the way he played with the forkful of parsnips told Casey he wasn’t going to like it one damn bit. “You know, it’s funny, when we were in the barn. You, uh, said something –”

Casey tossed him a narrow look. “What about it?”

“Well, it was … right before your horse decided she liked me –”

“Because she didn’t kill you? Heh.”

“– I mentioned the Valley Campaign, and your eyes did this little … thing."

“What thing?” That came out sounding pissed."

“Um, a little … that’s not the point. What I mean is that I couldn’t help but get this niggling feeling … that somehow … you were there.”

Casey forgot about his hand absently stroking over the soft fur. He was too busy eyeballing the odd kid with the odder sense of the past. They weren’t going to have a tender heart-to-heart, not on his watch, but really, what was the harm? The kid would take it to his grave. “You’re not a complete dumbass,” he said. “Yeah. I was there.” 

“And somewhere amid the cursing was a compliment.” Chuck’s dark lashes swept down. Then low but still audible, “So how did you … well….”

Casey rolled his eyes and took care to shift his legs without disrupting his furry passenger. “What is your stuttering getting at?” 

“It’s just that … I didn’t think someone like –” His expressive brows creased as he fumbled for words. “I’m sorry, I guess. I didn’t realize ….”

Holy Christ. Did brown eyes just apologize to him? Casey ran his hand along the slope of his rigid jaw, not looking at the kid. He wanted to groan out loud at God or the Devil’s sense of humor, at fate, at whatever the hell brought him to the desolate farm. This kid was a job, a way to get out of this without leaving a trail that a search party could uncover. Nothing more than that.

He swallowed. “Don’t be sorry. Just shut up and eat.”

A hurt expression flickered over Chuck’s face. “So are you … you don’t sound like a Southerner. Does that mean –”

“Hell, no,” Casey replied before he could stumble along. “I fought under General Banks. Just a dumb kid – kinda like you, city boy.” He shot Chuck a look and got up to throw a log on the fire. “When our regiment colonel was badly wounded, they told me, lucky boy, I was a major now.”

“Wait. You were – seriously?"

“Threw me in with a bunch of recruits in what was left of their company. We led the reinforcements to Kernstown. But that bastard – your stuffed horse’s namesake –”

“Tender topic, I know, I know.” The kid held up his hand, his eyes full of questions. “I’m just wondering … well, how do I –”

“Let me guess. You’re wondering about a man who showed up on your doorstep, on the run, and with a bullet hole in him.” Casey left the words there while he adjusted the log on the fire. “How that man became me.” 

“Well, honestly?” Like this damn kid could do otherwise. “Yes, that’s exactly what I’m wondering.”

His eyes stayed level with the kid’s. He wondered if Chuck knew he could snap his spine just as easily as spitting right now. If he wanted to. Which was usually his urge when the shadows from the past clamped their stranglehold on him. He had no use for them. “That’s also none of your damn business.”

“Seems to be your pat answer for everything,” Chuck said, chewing slowly around a bite of bread. “Oh, that and of course the ubiquitous shut up.”

They both turned when a log in the fire crumbled, sending sparks up the flue. As the distraction died, Casey nudged him with his knee. Yeah, the chatter was damn irritating, but the curiosity gnawed a bit. He wanted to know before tomorrow.

“I thought you needed to defend your pathetic existence,” he said blandly. “I’ll even give you thirty seconds.” 

“Wow. Attempting conversation. Nice of you.” Chuck raised his chin. “But no thanks. I’m not taking your bait, and I … I don’t work well with arbitrary time limits.”

“Then can we get back to the question of whiskey?” Casey hooked a thumb in his pocket and settled back again, getting comfortable. “C’mon, kid, I know you’ve got something here. Even if you only use it for a damn tooth-ache. Let’s see it.”

“I … suppose I can find something,” Chuck said stiffly, getting up from the table. Casey watched as he reached around one of the shelves behind a large tin and pulled out a brown bottle. “Is Scotch okay?”

“I’ll live.” One corner of his mouth tilted upward. “Knew you’d have something.” When he took a pour, Casey was mildly surprised to see Chuck take one for himself. “Bottom’s up,” he told him, signaling to the kid. “Hate to drink alone.”

“Well, normally I don’t drink, but … under the circumstances, I guess I could have one.” The kid lifted the glass, and maybe the city boy was trying to hide it, but his hands shook just a bit as he put the cap back on the bottle.

Nerves will get you killed, kid. 

But in this case ... it was a moot point. 

The rush of awareness that this thought usually gave him died somewhere in his lower belly. Taking this kid out of play tomorrow … leaving his warm … long body somewhere under a fallen tree trunk ….

It was ruining a good glass of Scotch. That pissed him off. Since when did abandoned and very dead bodies keep him up at night?

Still, was it wrong that certain details of the kid’s existence provoked his interest? It was only natural … only that. 

Casey gave a mock toast. “Let’s hear it. Not pathetic? Why shouldn’t I think so?” He paused, taking a drink. “A kid like you … out here by yourself?”

“Well. I’m not by myself, am I?” 

“Skip the smart-ass comments.”

“It seemed relevant,” Chuck sniffed. 

“And leave out the details that are gonna give me an ass-ache, kid. Try to sum it up quick. Thirty seconds is about the extent of my patience.”

“You know something?” Chuck said. “You are a real dick head.” He brought the glass up again, glaring at him over the rim. “Well, I’ll do my best to keep my life story down to half a minute, because I wouldn’t want to bore your ass.”

Casey stared right back, hoping to work a wince or a wilt out of him. Infuriatingly, the boy didn’t flinch. “Got a little bit of spunk, don’t ya?” he noted, not waiting for the inevitable back talk. “I like that about you. But you still haven’t answered the question.”

Chuck scratched the back of his head as he considered an answer. Or perhaps he was weighing how much he wanted to tell a stranger who held him at gunpoint. Literally. “Well,” he started, wetting his lips, “I – you see, before I left … Boston –”

“Nuh-uh. Hold it there,” Casey cut in, recognizing the wandering tone of his voice. “That’s back far enough, brown eyes. I already got that part – a naïve stupid kid left town –”

“Hey, what happened to not judging? Because, if this about my horse –”

“Your horse? How about a tenderfoot from the Old States who’s landed in the most improbable place ever? I don’t need the sappy fairy tale that went sour, cupcake. What I asked was why.”

Chuck shrugged and lifted his chin. “That’s none of your damn business.”

“Let’s try that again. Did I strike a nerve, ‘cause I asked you –”

“Go to hell. I already told you. None of your damn business.”

Casey grunted. It chafed a bit to hear his words thrown back at him again. “Know something else, kid?” He lowered his voice to a husky growl just because he could. “Talking to you is like trying to break a stubborn colt. Resisting the riding lesson. There’s always one that wants to put up a kick. But I should warn you, princess," he said. "I’ve broken a few.”

“Nice analogy,” the kid pointed out, and his glare deepened. However, the lanky city boy was no dummy, and it only took him a few beats to realize he wasn’t going to win this staring contest. 

“Fine.” Chuck huffed. “I’m not explaining the why to you. No matter how much you threaten with that growly sound of yours or flex your – anyway, but the what? Sure.” Though he still seemed to balk, as if bracing himself. “I … fix things.”

“Fix things,” Casey repeated, failing to withhold a disbelieving snort. “Care to explain, boyo?”

His brows drew down at the derisiveness. “You know. Fix things …. Things that are … broken,” Chuck faltered, sitting up a little taller. “Well, that’s part of it, anyway. The only part you need to know.”

“So now is it okay if I ask what, runaway, or is that out of line too?”

“You have a thing for names, don’t you?”

“You have a thing for talking too much, don’t you?”

For lack of a better reply, Chuck made a face at him. “I mean … this.” The kid nodded past his shoulder and got up, taking a few steps to the open cabinet next to the cast iron stove. Digging around, he pulled out a wooden box and set it down in the middle of the table. “You’ll have to move, if you don’t mind. There’s more.” 

Hand tools – nippers, bolt cutters, vises, and a few objects Casey didn’t recognize – all came into view. “You still make no sense, kid,” he said, watching as Chuck placed them in a neat row. 

“Yeah, well, I’m glad I don’t owe you an explanation.” The kid turned to him holding a hammer. “That’s the only thing you need to – ow! What the hell are you doing?” 

Abruptly, Casey caught a hand around the kid’s wrist, not waiting for him to stammer out an explanation. He knew how this worked. 

“Waiting for me to turn my back on you?” He emphasized his point by squeezing his fingers into the tender flesh until Chuck bit down on his lip. “Is that any way to treat a house guest?”

“Wh-what? Ow.” The kid cringed. “Um, I …. Do you think … because I … seriously?” The hammer landed on the table with a loud thunk. “I’d never be able to –”

“Stow it.” 

Casey paused to consider the evidence. Searching his face, he took in every detail of those smoky-dark eyes, his flushed cheeks. Dammit. He was right, of course. This kid had made him … jumpy. 

“You know I … couldn’t.” Chuck tried to pull back from him. “That’s not me.”

Steady, steady. Not yet.

An eon passed while Casey held his wrist, bare skin to bare skin. But, Christ. This kid had about as much in common with Billy the Kid as Jackson did with Vic. The likeness stopped after the fact you counted each had four legs and piss hole.

“Pick it up,” Casey finally ordered, tipping his chin down to the table.

“You’ll … have to let me go,” Chuck said quietly. “Please.”

As Casey reluctantly complied, taking his sweet-ass time to loosen every finger, he put on a knowing little smirk. “I make it a habit to not believe men, brown eyes. It’s been a golden rule that has kept me alive in this … line of business."

“Business? It’s probably a term being stretched to the full extent of the law,” Chuck muttered, rubbing his wrist. “Oh, no offense.”

“But in this case,” Casey went on, ignoring the jibe, “and only this case, I’m making an exception. Because I really don’t think you have it in you, city boy.”

“Well, isn’t that nice? I should be flattered that you don’t think so.” Chuck pasted on a fake smile. “Lucky me. A sharp shooter and an expert in character flaws, all rolled up in one big fun package.”

“Didn’t mean to ruffle your skirt, kid,” Casey replied. He leaned back, knees a lazy distance apart, then cocked a brow at him. “Fix things?”

Chuck frowned, as if considering whether to open his mouth, and gave in with a shrug. “People are willing to pay a fair price … for getting their things repaired. Or if they don’t have money, we barter – uh, that means dicker –”

“I know what it means.” Casey gave him an eye roll. “Where do you get this junk?”

“I prefer to call them mechanical devices, or – oh. Please don’t touch that. That’s my current project, and it’s a –”

“And I know what it is, too,” Casey interrupted. “A chronometer.”

“How …. I see.” Chuck tried to hide his surprise by lifting out something that had been crammed in the corner. “Do you know what this is?”

“A sextant,” Casey remarked, loosening the buttons on his shirt. “What. Did I catch you unawares, kid?"

An inquisitive look crossed his features. “I have to admit,” Chuck began shifting his eyes from Casey to the object in his hands, “I didn’t think you’d –”

“And here I thought you were an expert in character flaws.”

“Oh. Funny. I see what you did there – Buddy, down.”

The cat, obviously dismissing the commotion for a warm lap or food, had appeared back on the table, now content to wrap his body around the glass globe and sniff the empty plates. 

“You’re hungry. Sorry, big guy, I’ll – oh, no.” Chuck lifted his head towards the window. “You’re not the only one. How did it get to be sundown already?”

“Maybe you were having too much fun.” Slipping a hand into his shirt, now that the top buttons were freed, Casey pressed on the bandage-slash-donated shirt lightly, testing his arm with a rotation. Back a few times. Forward in a circle. When the moves didn’t send a shot of pain up his arm, he began untying the knot that held the makeshift dressing, only bothering a glance at the kid. “What the hell are you yammering about now?”

Chuck pushed his hands through his dark waves and straightened a little bit. Another one of those nervous gestures the kid leaned on when he had to say something, so Casey just waited for it. “The animals. I’m sure you’ve noticed … I have a few of them that depend on me. I need to get out there.”

A sardonic smile touched Casey’s mouth. “And let me guess. You want me to stay here. Watch over the place while you’re gone?” Lowering his shirt from his shoulder, he unraveled the blood-stained cloth while he spoke. “Maybe let you take a side trip into town, or visit the neighbors?” 

“Well, I – no. I just need to … if you have to come with me, then fine.” He grabbed his coat, doing everything in his power and failing mightily at avoiding a look at the bandage or Casey’s bare chest. “I’ll … wait.”

“Yeah? Great timing, kid. Why don’t you just watch me retie the bandage, put on this shirt, and go back out to the musty barn.” Casey made a scoffing sound. “How long is this gonna take?”

Chuck shook his head and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “It’s not a ranch. Just a tiny farm. Ten minutes.”

Casey came to the end of the fabric and balled it up with one hand. Deliberately making him wait, he scrutinized the kid’s determined face, and then let his eyes drift down in a leisurely track; his neck, his worn coat, his jeans. Down to his –

“Boots.” Casey waggled his fingers at him, giving him a no bullshit look. “Hand ‘em over.”

“My … what now?” The kid gaped. “Did you say –”

“Are you deaf, city boy? I told you to hand over your boots.” A snap of his fingers informed Chuck he had better get a move on. “Take them off. Give them to me.”

“My ….?” Casey watched as the kid’s mouth opened, then closed, all the while blinking at him in confusion. When Chuck caught on, his face screwed up in a scowl and he tightened his arms over his chest. “My boots,” he repeated. “You think I’m going to make a break for it.”

“Nice work there, kid. Hand them over. And move your ass, because I’m giving you five minutes before I come out there, not ten.”

“But I –”

“Or nothing. That’s your choice.”

Chuck bristled at the order. “Wow. Thanks. I get to keep my shirt this time?” He fidgeted, looking down at his feet before finally heaving a breath. Begrudgingly, he pulled off the boots and handed them to him one at a time, then crossed his arms again with defiance. “Happy now?” he bit out. “Can I go?”

“Sure.” Casey’s eyes coursed over him as he tossed his shirt on the arm of the settee. “And kid?”

With his hand on the knob, Chuck half-turned, still not willing to get an eyeful. “Y-yes?”

“Don’t you even think about running.”

-x-

Hell yes, he was going to run.

Because it only took ten steps through the soggy grass, still soaked from the hard rain, for the kid to be hit with a few cold hard facts. 

For one, he would never again take for granted a pair of worn leather boots. 

And two. He had to make a break for it this instant, not burning another precious second of the five minutes he had been allotted, because the intruder was going to kill him. 

Kill him. As in dead. Chuck’s stomach bottomed out. Despite the cool night air, sweat began to spring up under his shirt, rippling along his ribcage. A spike of adrenaline, meshed with panic, sent his legs in motion. Tiny rocks and mud be-damned, Chuck took off for the barn in a dead sprint. 

He pushed the door open – a little too hard – and jogged to a familiar pen. His bare feet slid in the straw and a bucket went flying when he lurched to a stop. “Jack,” Chuck said, and God, why was he was already wheezing? “I need you to be at your best tonight, buddy. I need you to go all in – Jackson? Are you – oh, no.” 

Reaching out with a tentative hand, Chuck poked his chest. After a long pause, the horse moved back a step and snorted at him. Then he closed his eyes again.

“Oh, hell.” A bit frantic, he brought a hand up and raked it through his hair. When that didn’t settle his nerves, he began pacing along the stall. “Not good … need another plan. Think, think ….” 

Because really now, how the hell could he out run a burly man with only a half-dead, stuffed horse from the clash between the states? 

God. He was a dead man. 

The soft crunching of straw under foot made him turn. He tensed, but his senses told him it was just another set of hooves, not boots. Oh. By the time he heard a nicker from the stall at the end, he was already trotting in that direction. 

The paint startled at seeing a man she understandably didn’t expect. Stunned that he was even thinking this, Chuck put a hand on the gate and took a second to eye the animal. Muscular legs, broad chest, a strong back, she was the perfect combination of power and grace. 

And what had to be the ideal transportation for an escape into a dark, clear night. 

“Hey … hey girl.” Gingerly, Chuck stepped up to the side of the stall and held out his hand. “Sorry, I don’t have anything, but see? I’m not going to hurt you or anything like that, we just … well, how would you like to go for a ride?”

Vic pointed her ears in his direction, flicked them a few times, and blew out a snort.

“Okaaay, then. I’m not really sure if that’s a yes,” he said, regarding her from nose to tail, “or if you’d rather give me a hoof to the head for this, but I guess there’s only one way to find out.”

The kid looked up fleetingly past the wooden rafters for guidance, anything really, but finding none, he shuffled into the pen. “See? We can be friends.” Smiling, he kept his voice soothing and his palms flat in the air. “I’m just going to go over here … and get the saddle, and you’re going to … well, just stay there, okay?”

Keeping his eyes pinned to the horse, Chuck backed up to the railing where the saddle laid along the top crossbar. He brought his hands down slowly, slowly, trying not to think of the two minutes he had burned off the clock, and he latched his hands on the leather. 

“Now, you may not like this part, girl, but I need to put this saddle on you – whoa.”

In the second it took the kid to get a grip on each end of the saddle, the horse lit up as if struck by lightning. Immediately, Vic transformed from a mildly complacent mode of transportation to the devil in short hair and hooves. Rearing up, she squealed and struck out with her legs in the air. 

“Holy sh –” Going bug-eyed, Chuck dropped the saddle and whirled around, slamming the gate behind him. Now that he was safe, he blinked in dismay at the irate beast. “Uh, down girl! Down.” What? Down? Was he an idiot? Shaking his head at himself, he thought about it. “Um, please?”

Even though he was behind the railing – somehow with all limbs attached – the kid couldn’t help but stumble backwards when another hoof barreled into the fence. “Okay, okay. Sheesh. Aren’t we picky?” 

Maybe he should try again or something. Be a little more insistent and show the animal who’s boss. Drawing his brows down, he inspected the snorting, pissed-as-hell horse and wiped his sweaty palms down the front of his jeans. No, that would be stupid. Or a suicide mission. Apparently, Vic only trusted one man.

Him? Stupid freaking horse!

After another twenty-two seconds had passed, he looked down at his bare feet, already coated in wet grass and mud – and lurched for the back door of the barn. The kid exploded through it, already sprinting through the thistle sage and tall grass of the open field. He tripped, landing face first into the ground, and saw a burst of stars.

“Gah. Hell,” he gasped, giving his head a shake. Springing up, and with only his fear and cold sweat propelling him, he ran at full tilt into the pitch-black night. 

-x-

“Kid?” He couldn’t be absolutely certain what he would try, so Casey pushed the door open cautiously, watching it fold back into the barn without stepping over the threshold. Instead, he peered to the side, then up to the roughhewn rafters that crisscrossed overhead. “Chuck. Answer me.”

Unremarkably, there was no response from a passel of chickens and a spotted cow. 

It took less than five seconds to tell him what his senses had already told him back in the cabin when the six minute mark had come and gone. City boy was, by this time, perhaps a little tired of his company, and had made a snap decision – albeit a reckless one – to make a break for it. 

Casey finished buttoning his coat and his lips tugged up in the tiniest smug smile. Did the kid really think he’d let this happen under his nose? Not tonight, or ever, boyo. He was in no mood for games, but if the kid wanted to play, then so be it. 

“Well, brown eyes,” Casey murmured to himself. “Are you on foot or horseback, I wonder.” He strode down the middle pathway of the barn and drew to a halt in front of one of the stalls. “So look who got left behind.” An elbow resting on the top rail, he gave the animal a sly look. “I see he decided not to let you slow him down. Cupcake made a good choice there, eh?”

The swish of Jackson’s tail was the only sign that told Casey the horse was still counted among the living. After a long ten seconds ticked by, the animal cracked open an eye at the sound of Casey’s snicker before closing it again, not sparing him another look.

“Jesus. Someone saw that kid coming a mile away.” Casey shook his head and slanted his eyes towards the stall at the end. Would he dare?

The larger man couldn’t help but smirk as he strolled to a stop in front of Vic’s pen. “Surprised you didn’t cave his head in for even thinking it, girl,” Casey told her, eyeing the saddle tipped over on its side in the straw. “If I didn’t know better, Vic, I’d say you got a damn soft spot for that kid.”

Since the horse wasn’t confessing or denying, Casey opened the gate and picked up the saddle, tossing it over her back. With a brusque pull, he tightened the cinch strap, making the horse stomp and back up a few steps. “Yeah? Well, don’t look at me,” Casey grumbled. “You’re the one who let him get away.” 

For a few minutes anyway. An hour tops. It pissed him off a little, but why did a luckless greenhorn on foot – literally – think he could outrun a man and a fast horse? What did the kid have going for him? Maybe those long legs and knowledge of the terrain, but that was about it. At least in his experience, Casey knew, cunning and shrewd beat a book-smart boy from Boston any day, anywhere.

Taking the reins in his fist, he led Vic out the barn door and closed it behind him. He squinted into the dark, giving himself a second or two for his eyes to adjust, then arched a brow at the horse.

“Suppose it’d be too much trouble for ya, Vic, to point out which way the kid went?” 

-x-

Apprehension, that he could handle. But the panic of being hunted, the fear of dying tonight, flooded his system, keeping his feet moving through the long grass and nettles, through the ragged shrubs catching on his pants and shirt. Something told him he should be watching out for his feet and the pointy stones along the path, cutting into the bottom of them. But he didn’t even feel it. 

Okay, so maybe later, this was going to hurt like hell.

His first thoughts – getting away, not heading to the Baudrey’s farm – swam in his head. It was the closest safe haven, since the farm was only three miles away, but how could he take a killer to their doorstep? 

No, God, no. He had to make it to town, which meant seven miles and over the ridge. Without a horse, in the dark. Barefoot along the riverbank. 

More panic rose, but he swallowed it down. The sliver of crescent moon lit the ripples along the creek, leading him to the narrowest point. He looked across the stream and took a half minute to catch his breath. It was a gift and a curse to have the moonlight. If the ghostly reflection made his escape route easier to discern, it would make him easier to pick out along the path. So where to hide now, genius?

He felt ill. Chuck stayed still, hands on his knees and buckled over, waiting to see if he would throw up. Nothing came. When he wiped the sweat out of his eyes, he focused ahead and blinked. The woods. He needed the cover of the forest. Which meant he had to cross the river here and get up the ridge as fast as his aching bare feet and wilted legs could get him.

“Ah … damn, cold, cold, cold. So cold,” he mumbled, feeling the water rise from his calves, his thighs to his lower belly. Mud squished between his toes, slimy weeds tangled around his feet, but he inhaled sharply and pushed through the current. “Ow, dammit.” 

Of course, there had to be sharp rocks on the other side of the creek bed. And of course, the warm trickle of fluid at his heel told him that he had managed to slice the bottom of his foot. Luckily, with the fear, he barely felt it.

Again, was he crazy? His mind had to be cooped up in a pretty scary dark place for thinking of a positive out of this. 

Climbing up the bank, Chuck sprinted through the open tall grass that would lead to the tree line. The cold-soaked and muddy jeans slowed him down, and he briefly considered ditching them, but they were his only protection against the brambles and prickly burrs that tore at his legs as he ran.

Besides, he thought, he would really wish he had them when he got into town. 

“Ouch – shit.” He tripped, went down on both knees, and scrambled to get up. Panting hard, he wanted to stop. Throw himself on the ground, curl up, and somehow get warm again. But the stranger was going to kill him if he didn’t keep moving. The man didn’t need him in one piece, had no use for him anymore. 

The problem was Casey had a horse, a fast one by the looks of it, forty pounds of muscle on him, and a gun that he presumably knew how to use. Chuck had soaked clothes, a body wrung out after the first mile and a half, and bare feet. 

God, out of everything, why did it have to be the boots?

And these thoughts weren’t helping. Not a damn bit. 

Only one thought mattered. Run.

-x-

He changed his direction and headed east, along a wooded slope, not taking the climb to the mesa for at least a few minutes. The route was level, and would still get him to town in a way that wasn’t as predictable. And it had the advantage of letting him catch his wind again, because the kid was fairly certain he had scared off every last trace of wildlife with the way he was sucking for air. 

Only to the clearing about two hundred yards ahead. Just that. Then he’d have to head up the ridge, or end up having to back track to town. Considering he was being tailed by a crazy man with a gun, that wasn’t his best plan. 

The kid rolled to a stop and peeked down at his feet. He couldn’t ignore the ache anymore. “Dammit – ouch.” In the dark, blood and mud were impossible to tell apart. “Please let this be dirt,” he said, lifting a foot to wipe indeterminate gook off the bottom. “Ow. Shit! Okay, so that was blood.” 

With a huff, Chuck leaned against a tree, closed his eyes, and sent a silent plea to the tree tops. Should he go up the ridge here? Or keep traveling along to the east? If he at least knew where the other man was, he could take the opposite path. 

After he had cursed him damn good, Chuck let his eyes drift open, looking up into the branches, the thick wide limbs over his head – and he had a terrible, yet … feasible idea. The lowest branches spread over him starting a few feet up, and from there, the tree limbs formed a natural ladder, leading about forty feet into the sky. Admittedly, heights were not his favorite thing – not even in the top fifty or so of favorites – but if he could get a view of the landscape below him, and hide among the leafy branches for a while … maybe he could make the man think he was long gone? 

“Please don’t fall, please, don’t fall,” Chuck whispered, grabbing onto the lowest branch. His bare feet shimmied up the trunk while he hung like a lanky awkward monkey – ow, again, really, the boots?! – and swung his leg up. Now it was just a matter of taking a limb, moving a foot, and finding a sturdy hand hold along the way. Piece of cake. If you didn’t count the heights, the boots thing, and well, everything else, Chuck had to tell himself. 

“Don’t look down … cannot look down.” He repeated the mantra until he reached a perch about twenty feet up, a nice solid limb wide enough to anchor his foot. Poking his head up through a few thin branches, he could see the snake-like bends of the river he had crossed, and the curving tree line at the lower lip of the basin. 

Not bad. Okay, just breathe. 

If it weren’t for the fact that he was scared out of his mind, soaking wet, and dog tired, he might’ve taken a moment for his taut muscles to unwind, to let the breeze dry the water and sweat from his clothes. 

Well, if he wasn’t one wrong turn from death at the hands of a man who doesn’t even blink.

Pushing that notion out of his head, he lifted himself on his toes, still latched onto the branch at his waist level, and let his eyes roam over the landscape below. Nothing. Maybe he was able to ditch him? Maybe a gangly kid from the city could use his brains to outsmart a rough-as-dirt outlaw? 

Who the hell was he kidding?! He had to get out of here. Chuck tipped his head back to get a brief look at the stars, glimmering pinpoints of light that under vastly different circumstances, he would stop to ponder. But that would be later. When he was out of this insane mess.

Glancing down at his feet, he reached for a lower tangled limb and began to scoot his legs closer to the trunk –

– until he heard the distinct snap of a twig directly below him. 

“Hey, sunshine.” The burr of a deep voice carried up from the ground. “Got a nice view from up there, eh?”

-x-

High above his head, amid the branches, the kid seemed to freeze. “How – how did you find me?” he blurted, climbing back up to the branch he had just vacated. “I was ... that’s not possible!”

“Not possible?” Casey slanted a look over his shoulder and took his time brushing some mud off his coat. “The better question is, cupcake, how could we not hear you. I had to convince Vic here I wasn’t taking her headlong into a buffalo stampede.” 

“That’s an exaggeration, don’t you think? I can be stealthy, you know.”

“Heh. Tell it to Vic.” But his eyes narrowed as Casey realized he had made a slight tactical error. Why had he given away his position right then? Fuck. The kid was on his way down. He should’ve kept quiet and let him get to the ground, then grabbed him. 

Usually he was quicker on his feet. This was all the damn kid’s fault.

“Well, you could go back and start over again. I promise to be quieter next time.”

“Really, smart mouth? Get your ass down here,” he replied. “’Cause we need to have a long talk about the rules again.”

“Hell, no. Not a chance,” the kid said, fisting a branch over his head and pulling himself up higher. “Go back … to wherever it is that you came from. Just leave me here, or I’ll –”

“Throw your boot at me? Oh, wait a minute, that’s a not really an issue here, is it?”

“Hah. And you’re still a son of a bitch for that.” Chuck tugged on his coat, loosening his hem from a stubborn twig that had taken hold. He seemed to be considering his options, and a second later, Casey had to move over a step to the side when the kid decided to fight back by hocking a loogie at him. “How … how did that –”

“Miss by a mile?”

“God, do you have friggin’ owl eyes? Sheesh!” 

“You’re gonna run out of tree, kid. Why don’t you come down and make it easier for yourself.”

He stopped on a wobbly branch and looked down. “Go to hell.”

Casey peered up through the leaves and watched those dark eyes studying him intently. “You’re just full of advice tonight, aren’t ya?”

Though outwardly Casey remained aloof, he still had to address his quandary, or more specifically, how to get that stubborn little shit out of the goddamn tree. Part of him was on the verge of climbing it just to throttle the kid for this stunt.

But when he shot a look up at him, noting his solemn, fearful eyes, the idea hit. This is it. Chuck had handed him an easy out, and he should take it. Out here, in the middle of the woods along the bank, Casey could end the pesky open issue with just one twitch of his trigger finger. 

Because, really, where could he hide now?

Casey stood there, letting his eyes travel up the tree trunk, past the wide lower branches, reminding him of arms stretched to the sky, to the wide-eyed boy – man, not a boy – barefoot in the crook of a branch that could scarcely hold his weight. He could still hear his short, uneven pants of breath coming out hard between his parted lips, see his chest heaving with the burden of not knowing what would happen next. 

Honest. It was best not to know.

Mechanically, Casey unfastened the strap on the holster, drew out his Colt, tightening it in his grip. When he looked up into the kid’s fearful expression, the short hairs on the back of his neck prickled, his skin tingled and the touch of cold metal.

“What … what’re you –?”

Do this. Get it over with, the voice of reason ordered. 

“Please … please don’t ….” he heard Chuck say.

Don’t listen to him. Don’t look at his face, the voice repeated. With his heart pounding against his ribcage, Casey lifted the Colt in the direction of the upper branches and squinted up at his target. He wet his lips and swallowed. By his estimation, the kid had to be only about twenty-five feet off the ground, a wide open bull's eye. It was almost too easy.

No. Not almost. It was.

Gazing down the barrel, Casey locked eyes with Chuck, just for a split second, and caught sight of the pale skin at his temple. “No, no, no,” Chuck whispered urgently. His brown eyes blew wider, incredulous, while he wrapped an arm around the nearest limb. “Ple –”

Something exploded. The sharp crack collided with his eardrums, sending the familiar, pungent burst of gun powder into the air. Just as quickly, the flash of light was gone, the echo traveling along the ridge before getting swallowed by the night. The darkness.

There. It’s done, the voice observed. 

Casey moved a prudent distance away from the trunk, his eyes following the barrel of the Colt. When the limbs stopped shaking, he turned his gaze to where the bullet had hit. 

So did the kid.

“Are … are you out of your mind?!” Chuck sputtered, the first to find his voice. Overhead, he clung to a branch that still swayed, eyes as big as saucers. “You … shot at me!”

Casey forgot to breathe. Standing tall with his gun still smoking, he didn’t register the leaves and loose branches fluttering to the ground around him. He was too busy staring in shock at the kid’s eyes, going from astonishment, to cornered anger, to desperation. 

Yes, he had shot at him, but he had missed by a country mile. 

At point blank range, John Casey missed the target.

That never happens. 

He stalked forward, craning his neck, every muscle along his shoulders becoming rigid. Heart jackhammering by now, he ignored that damn voice and slid the gun back into the leather holster without letting his eyes drift from Chuck’s face.

“Get your ass down here,” Casey growled. Not that he was certain yet what to do with this kid, but getting him out of the tree seemed to be the first thing.

“N-not a chance! I’m not coming down until you leave,” Chuck yelled back, his bare foot inching up along the trunk, slipping when he could not find a decent foothold. “Why would I if you just tried to shoot me?!”

Well, the kid might’ve had a valid point there, but still. Casey pushed his hat back on his head, glowering up at him, his other hand reflexively becoming a fist. “Damn. You stubborn little –”

An eerie, single snap under Chuck’s feet made both men jolt. 

“Uh-oh,” the kid managed, jerking back from the ruptured limb which took the brunt of the shot. The limb which was now beginning to droop towards the ground. “This is all your fault!” 

“My fault.” Casey tossed his hat on the ground in frustration – though there was a chance it was more with himself than anything. “You idiot! You’re the one who ran –”

“Because you wanted to shoot – gah.” The kid immediately froze, save for the tightening of his death grip on the limb, his eyes fixed on the point the shattered branch met the trunk. Or what was left of that spot. “Oh, no.” 

“See?” Casey said, sneering as he watched the limb sway and buckle under his weight. “Now you have to –”

His voice was cut off by the pop of the branch beginning to give way. It seemed to hang, stock-still and suspended, dangling on the last threads of outer bark. 

Jesus, he was going to die. Before he could think, Casey pushed off from the trunk and it registered that his feet were moving, even while he kept his eyes locked to Chuck.

The splintered limb gave out. The last images his brain collected before the branch came crashing down were the kid’s ashen cheeks as he lowered his head, that crooked line of his nose, and the mess of brown curls plastered to his head with sweat and fear that he had put there. 

But those eyes. A hurt that went below the thin surface. When they were on him as they were now, it was as if Chuck had the ability to forcibly move him. 

Without reasoning, only reacting, Casey lunged forward and managed to hook a hand on his elbow, sliding up to the wrist. The sudden strong arm maneuver broke the fall, but only some, enough to keep the moron from killing himself. Because this was not his fault.

Well, maybe the shooting part. But that was it.

The aftermath brought the scent of spring leaves, exposed green wood, and a disquieting silence. The kid’s body lay in the tangle of branches and foliage. Not a movement from him. 

“Jesus.” Casey let out a breath and wet his throat. For some reason, his body wasn’t taking orders either, but at length he nudged him with the tip of his boot. “Get up.” Nothing. He knelt down to the lanky prone body, pushing back a jumble of hair at his temple to reveal a fresh gash bleeding freely. “Kid? Hey. Wake up.” 

Another nudge, this time on his shoulder, but the kid’s face remained slack. Casey’s eyes traveled down his torn tan coat, his soaked jeans clinging to his legs, his bloodied feet. He should feel a sense of justification, completion. 

Except for the slow rise, the fall of his chest. Still alive.

He was not confused about the inner sigh, letting go of a release. Not.

Damn … him. Damn Chuck Bartowski for this.

He tried not to think of the bigger dilemma at the moment. The one that had something to do with missing a shot he never fucking misses. 

Casey hesitated, trailing his fingers delicately past the wound, then ran the pad of his thumb over his cheek. “You know, I’m losing count the number of times you’ve done this to yourself,” he muttered. 

Unrelenting, the voice spoke again. He could still … do it. One bullet. Right there where the blood flowed over his cheek. If the window of opportunity was wide open a minute ago, it was wider now that the kid was out of it. Hell, it was the challis of Christ being handed to him. 

After a minute that went too long, the man looked up and rose to his feet, his thumb securing the leather flap of the holster. “And you shut the fuck up, too,” he said to no one. 

The sound of crumpled grass and stones under hooves made him turn around, and when he did, the paint snorted and flung her head back from her master’s gruff face. 

The answer. It wasn’t going to happen. 

Not tonight. Not ever.

Casey dragged a hand over his face and picked up his hat. “Vic, stop looking at me like that and get over here,” he said. “Think I can carry this dead weight all the way back by myself?”

-x-End On the Wings of Thieves and Dreams Chapter Five End-x-


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

God hated him. Really, really despised him. Was punishing him for every bad thought, for hating Him the night he took his mother away when he was nine. There was no other feasible cause for the pressure and weight and heaviness threatening to burst and scatter. Just to hurt.

Did God hold on to grudges for years? Wait to wave them in a man’s face when he was at his weakest? 

Really, God? Now?

But there was a fire crackling, the soft hiss and breath of flame. It was easy, warm … and probably not the depths of hell.

When he tried to move, something seemed to split his head open, like the blade of an axe wedged behind his left ear. So Chuck did the only thing his body would let him do. He groaned and wet his lips, trying to huddle into a ball of long limbs and hurt until the pain went away. Nothing was working.

“C’mon, brown eyes. Let’s see ‘em, eh?”

A man’s voice. Wanting him to wake up. Didn’t he already tell him to go away? Why was this happening again?

A hand on his cheek, cool and smooth along his jawbone, and in an instant, the disconnected memories flooded him. A patch of briar bushes, offshoots of long spindly arms holding him back. Bare feet, mud-covered and bloody, crossing a stream. Branches stretched to the sky. The sharp crack of a gunshot. A man in a brown coat as large as a bear.

A strange man.

A gun.

Aimed at him.

Oh, hell. Chuck shifted his head against the arm of the settee, eyes fluttering at first, and then drifting open. He managed a clumsy wave in the air to get rid of the stranger’s hand. But the other man was a strong bastard, and that move wasn’t quite working, either. 

“Kid?” A face filled his vision. Scruff on his chin, neatly trimmed brown hair, and eyes as pale blue as the waters off of Provincetown the day he turned twelve. Azure before the world awoke.

And the craziest day of his life smacked him between the eyes. 

“Ow.” Chuck stiffened and lifted his head until a shot of pain told him that that was the worst move he could make. “You … giant … ass!” He swept a downward glance at the man and dragged a hand over his own chest, searching, half expecting to find a hole there. “You shot me?!”

“I shot at you, kiddo,” Casey clarified, in a way that told him he should appreciate the difference. “If I was aiming to kill you, you’d be dead.”

“This … this is somehow better? You son of a bitch! You pointed a gun at me! And pulled the trigger!” Chuck pushed himself up on his elbows, wincing at the pain across his temple that lifting his head caused, but to hell with it. “Are you insane?!”

Casey shrugged. Using a sharp-looking knife, he then leaned back in his chair and plucked off a clod of mud from his boot. “Didn’t mean to ruffle you, cupcake. Look at it this way. You’re still here, you still have the important parts attached.” Pausing, Casey slanted a knowing look at him that made Chuck wonder if he had checked. “Try to show some gratification, why don’t ya?”

“Gratifi –?” Chuck choked. “Is that what you think? Seriously?” When Casey went back to mud picking without looking up, the kid squeezed his eyes shut and sagged back. “Okay. This is not happening. Just a dream. When I wake up, there will not be a crazy man sitting in a chair … who tried to shoot me – and thinks I should be thankful!”

He was cut off by a dry chuckle. “Stop moving around like that or you’ll get blood on the cushions.”

“Oh, God.” It throbbed at his temple, but besides being shot at, the rest of the details were still a blurred mess between his ears. But, “Blood?” Gingerly, he passed his hand over his forehead, stopping when his fingers tripped over a soft band of cloth. A wrapping of some sort, snug around his head. “What’s … this?” he asked. “Why is there –”

“Hands off.” Casey swatted them away. “Bandage,” he said, as if that was an explanation, and moved on to the next boot.

“A bandage?” Chuck’s eyes sprung open. “But why do I need –”

“You were bleeding like a stuck hog, that’s why,” Casey told him, flicking off a piece of dirt from the blade. “Everyone knows head wounds can get a little messy.” 

“I … I did not know that.” Chuck wrinkled his forehead as he thought about it. “So, let me get this straight. You caused this in the first place, and then bandaged my head when I …?”

“First, you caused. By running. Don’t forget that. Then you fell out of a tree.”

“I fell?” Immediately, he glanced down the length his body, sprawled out on the sofa. Without looking too closely, all the necessary parts seemed to be intact. “Let’s try this again, because I don’t get it. After shooting me –”

“Again, in your vicinity –”

“You decided that it would be a good idea to then patch me up.” His hand came up to tap lightly on the bandage. “How are those things even connected?! Why would you do that?”

“And get blood all over Vic?”

Chuck gaped. “Wait. You’re worried about getting my blood on your horse?”

“Ever try to get blood out of short hairs?”

Chuck raised his eyebrows. “Uh, no?”

“Well, it’s a bitch, let me tell ya,” Casey replied. After an inspection, the other man seemed satisfied with the job on his boots, and shoved the knife in his belt. “So I patched you up. End of story.”

There were no words for the lack of logic, and arguing was getting him exactly nowhere. Okay, so he ached from his sprint to almost freedom, his head hammered, but the brush with death coupled with healing was … insane.

Shifting his legs, the kid brought a hand over his chest, his expression completely perplexed. “This isn’t my shirt.”

“So try not to get anything on it.”

“You … took my … and this is … yours?” Embarrassment and humiliation crowded in on him on all sides. The thought of another man undressing him … not just another man. Him. “Oh … God.” He squeezed his eyes closed and sent the unwanted thought scurrying away. “Where’s my shirt?” Because at least that seemed like a relevant question when nothing else came to mind. 

“I told you. Blood,” Casey said. “Lucky for you, I had my pack with me, but I need that one back when you’re done with it, brown eyes. I dumped yours in a bucket on the porch.”

After he undressed him. Shit. Chuck felt a dreaded blush spread up his neck. “Well, geez. Thanks.” Instinctively, his arms tightened for the briefest of moments over his chest, on the off chance Casey decided he wanted the shirt back now. “It wouldn’t fit anyway,” he mumbled, and went back to resting his head on the arm of the settee. “For the record, I want the one you took.”

Casey chuckled as he rose from the chair. “Made for a scarecrow anyway. Oh, and if you’re worried, kid, don’t be.” He tugged, teasingly, on the hem of the shirt just to make him jump. “I promise I kept my eyes closed.”

“Asshole,” Chuck whispered under his breath, but Casey had already moved into the kitchen, standing at the stove. The kid brought his forearm over his brows, letting his aching head fall back again. He was bone-tired down to his toes, and everything hurt.

But a niggling bit of curiosity wormed away at him. He watched Casey’s back as he worked at the stove, and considering its width, Chuck couldn’t see a damn thing he was up to. That, in itself, was worrisome. 

Now more at a loss, the kid tilted his head to get a better look around him. Steam poured from the spout of his black and white speckled enamel coffee pot, sitting on one of the burners. Who knew that chasing a man through the woods with a gun worked up an urge for black coffee? After all, it had to be after midnight.

“What are you doing?” Chuck asked, his voice suspicious.

As an answer, he heard the metallic scraping noise of a pot over cast iron, followed by the soft gurgling sound of liquid hitting the bottom of a cup. 

Well. Make that two tin cups. Now Chuck had to lever himself up on his elbows again, just to get a better look. Because if Casey thought that he was going to take anything from him, he could go fu –

“Here. Take it.” A cup of steaming liquid was put under his nose. The woodsy scent of a forest after a rain storm, air thick and heavy, filled his nostrils. It was not entirely unpleasant, really. Just somewhat scary, since the kid was at a complete loss as to what to do with it. “Try not to spill it on the shirt.”

Chuck looked up at him, blinking. “What?”

“The shirt, city boy?”

The kid shook his head, not reaching for the cup being offered to him. “That’s not an answer. I meant what is that?” He glanced down and his lips firmed. “Are you trying to p-poison me?”

Casey stared. “Yeah, you got it all figured out, genius. I dragged your dead ass out of the woods,–”

“Vic did all the work, didn’t she?” Chuck cut in, giving him a smart-ass look. “You were just there to gripe about the blood?”

“– tied your brainless head with a bandage and laid you out here – so that I could poison you?” Casey rolled his eyes and pushed the cup towards his hand. “I suppose your daddy sent you to one of those fancy Boston schools, ace? Now take it.”

Chuck bristled. Deliberately, he snapped his mouth closed, leaned back, and gave him a look of utter defiance. 

No way.

Casey snorted at him, took his time lowering his face until their eyes were level. The icy stare didn’t budge. “Brown eyes?” he said, putting his other hand on the cushion next to Chuck’s head. “See the cup?”

Since Chuck was keeping his mouth closed, he could only glance down at the steaming liquid and say nothing.

“Good,” Casey replied, apparently taking that as acknowledgement. “Now, you should know, if you don’t take it from me and drink all of it, well, I’m gonna have to shove it down your throat.”

Even sliding back in the seat didn’t put enough distance between them. But … now what? Because he had no doubt. The man would do it. 

The kid started to say something, but the odd yet pleasing scent made him stop. Think. Casey did have a point about dragging him back here, didn’t he? Would he really try to poison him?

Still grudgingly, Chuck bent his head to examine the questionably murky liquid – and the very large hand around the cup. A strong hand that he could easily picture taking the very same cup and forcing it straight down his –

“Okay. Maybe it’s not poison.” Chuck brushed a hand through his hair, thinking, and then resigning himself to the cup, he took it from him. “I suppose, though, if I said you first, that you would –”

“Drink the fucking tea.”

“I can’t when you’re staring!” The kid lifted the cup, swirled it, and set it to his lips. Waiting for him to stop staring.

Casey cocked his head to the side, and moved in until their faces were close, Chuck’s vision dominated by blue eyes. He lifted a brow. “Ever been force-fed anything?” 

“Um.” He coughed. “Sheesh, fine.”

The liquid warmed him from his throat to his lower belly. It had an odd tang on his tongue, pungent yet … it cocooned him like a bed of pine needles. Kind of … soothing? And whatever poison tasted like, Chuck guessed that this wasn’t noxious. It helped that Casey, seeing him give up and drink, had settled in with his own cup.

“What … is it?” 

“White willow bark,” he heard the man rumble before taking another sip.

“Willow bark …. How would you even …?” His voice trailed. Chuck looked up at him, puzzled, after taking another drink, sweeter the second time down.

“The Cheyenne use it as a pain-killer.” Casey arched a brow at him. “Medicinal tea? They didn’t teach you that, I reckon. I keep it in my pack.” He lifted a shoulder. “I needed it for my arm. Decided to pour a second instead of throwing it out. That’s… all.”

Then his gaze shifted, and maybe the tea had caused hallucinations, because there was an uncomfortable glow on his face. 

When he looked again, it was gone. Chuck, in the midst of a sip, lowered the cup and frowned down at it. “I guess I didn’t know.” He slowly turned the hot metal around in his fingers, avoiding looking at the man. In a normal conversation, in normal circumstances, this was the point where he would thank someone. But nothing about this was normal. 

So instead, he polished off the rest in silence, not paying attention to the long legs sprawled out in front of him as Casey sat back in the chair and finished his own. 

Damn. He does have long legs …. 

Wait. What?

Chuck let his other hand splay over the cushion, relaxed at his side. The warmth of the fire, the tea, the wrap around his head … it gave the world soft corners. The pain throbbed a little less, and his eyes closed ….

Until Casey stood abruptly. In a heartbeat, Chuck felt the cup being taken from his slack hand as the other man shifted on his feet, crossing into the tiny excuse of a kitchen. Now what? Had he decided to give him some room to doze, to sort out the day in solitude? Maybe he was packing to leave? 

Feigning sleep, Chuck tucked his chin into his chest and he gave a narrow gaze towards the basin where Casey stood. Tall and taking up every square in front of the sink, the man took the handle of the pump, filling the metal tub before swishing the water with a finger. Hearing it softly slosh against the side of the basin, the kid watched as Casey reached for a –

Oh.

It took him about three seconds too long to figure out that Casey was preparing to wash off the dirt from their chase. Well.

Satisfied he wouldn’t be gutted in his sleep, the kid closed his eyes and prepared to roll on his side, but he stopped … and both eyes opened to slits. He knew it was wrong to observe – that’s all he was doing – but when the man shrugged his shirt off, he found himself watching his hand touch the back of his neck, rubbing away the pain of the place he came from. 

When the light of the kerosene lamp hit his broad back, the thin line of two silvery-pale scars came into view. One cut a short path over his shoulder blade, crisp and straight and a giant question. The other, much lower, just above the hip, had a jagged trail that disappeared under the waistband of his jeans. 

He had to wonder.

As the man bent over the basin, cupping his hands to wash his face, his neck … well, now he was … forced to watch the rippling swell of his back. His skin was tanned a bit from the sun, the muscles rolling beneath the surface like the powerful curve of a river breaking a bend. He ran his hands through his hair next, back and forth, and shook the water out, then used a rag next to the sink to wash his chest and arms. 

God, he felt like an idiot, staring at him, when he should be figuring out how to get rid of him …. 

Okay, he really should stop now.

Chuck swallowed, brushed his hands over the top of his head carefully, and closed his eyes. Not quite good enough. Moving flat on his back, he stretched his legs and pulled the toasty shirt closer to his body. Better. He wouldn’t complain about sleeping on the settee, because in truth, it was almost as comfortable as the bed upstairs. The kid sank back, vaguely wondering if he was making a mistake by not staying watchful, but the lulling crackle of the fire was too much to fight. He fell into a half-doze, then slipped further.

Only to be awoken by a strong finger tapping his forehead. “Get up, boyo.”

“Please stop,” Chuck said wearily, not bothering to let his eyes drift open. “Go to sleep. I’m giving you the bed, aren’t I?”

The tapping that started in his forehead moved to his cheek. “If you mean I’m taking the bed, then yes,” Casey said in a low voice, and grunted. 

Chuck categorized that one as a blend of amusement and trouble. Was there something funny about waking him up?

“Then go.” he pawed the air, sniffed with contentment, and tried to sleep. 

Impossible with the tapping on his forehead again. 

“Open your eyes,” Casey demanded, his voice closer this time, so Chuck guessed for some reason he was leaning down to his face. “And get your scrawny ass up.”

Well, that got his attention. Chuck opened his eyes, if only just to glare at him. “Is this fun for you? The whole Torment Chuck thing you have going on? I mean, it wasn’t enough to take my boots and chase me down, now you have to –”

“Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, brown eyes.” Since Chuck was now awake, Casey straightened and folded his arms over his chest. Better to loom over him, the kid guessed, and a way to make him crane his neck to meet his eyes. 

“What do you mean?” Chuck said, huffing his displeasure.

Casey’s eyes took on a gleam that was not to be trusted. “Can’t rely on you now … to do what I’ve told you to do. And I sure as hell can’t let you out of my sight. That means we’re both taking the bed.” He nodded towards the narrow staircase. “So let’s go.”

Chuck’s mouth opened, closed, opened yet again – but sounds were hard to come by. Slowly, his brows drew up, and he raised his hands defensively. “I … did you say …. Oh, no.” He stole a glance towards the stairs. “I’m completely trustworthy! You … still have my boots! How would I even –”

“Stow it.” Casey grabbed his collar – well, actually it was Casey’s collar but Chuck figured this was not the time to quibble – and yanked him to his feet. “Get a move on,” he snapped, pushing him towards the stairs, though the kid balked. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get some shut eye, so pick up your feet.” Not that he had a choice. After a second passed, Casey answered his hesitation by dragging him by a fistful of shirt up the stairs. 

The kid sputtered and struggled, but to hell with this. He had to listen to reason, didn’t he? He couldn’t just pull him along where he felt like it, dammit, and he sure as hell was not going to sleep with him. “Let go of my damn shirt, you big jerk.” Chuck latched onto his hand and tried to move even one finger. Like that did any good. “Did you hear me?”

The feel of pressure on his hand made Casey turn. Eyeing Chuck up and down – his red face, his stiff limbs pulling away from him, the stubborn set to his jaw –the man did the last thing he expected. He grinned. The fucker grinned at him. 

“I like you, kid,” he said. “You’re a spunky little bastard.” A hard tug. “Now let’s move.”

-x-

The kid stumbled over the woven rug, thanks to the feet dragging he was still trying to pull off. But being in no mood for this act, Casey put a hand on his wiry back and propelled him towards the bed. Paying no heed to those indignant dark eyes, he began to dig through his pack. Why should he feel guilty at the kid’s clumsiness? 

Ah, Christ.

Casey went back to searching for clean underclothes. Fishing them out, he walked over to a chair in the corner and set the pack down, having to duck under a crossbeam. The house was a typical farmer’s homestead, meaning the second story was really no more than a tight space packed under the rafters. It also meant that the only place in the room where he could stand without stooping was the very center. 

“Cozy place you have here,” he muttered, appraising it with a sarcastic look. 

“You can always leave if you don’t like it.” Chuck stood a little taller as he looked around the room, then met his eyes. “I hear there’s a nice place in town. If you don’t mind the bars over the window blocking your view?” 

Casey chuckled. “What? Give up this lavish lifestyle, farm boy? Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

The kid said something under his breath and lowered himself to sit on the bed, but when the implication hit him, he shot up uncomfortably, pushed a hand through his hair. The pacing began. 

God, if he thought this was uncomfortable already? Heh.

Shaking his head, Casey took off his holster and pushed past him, making his way to a chest of drawers along one wall. He shouldn’t enjoy tweaking the kid, since at least the loft was dry and oddly cozy enough. A shaving mirror hung in a carved oak frame hung over the dresser – so the kid used a razor and kept neat, out here by himself? Huh. On top of the dresser sat a small porcelain wash basin and a glass-domed kerosene lamp, a comb that looked like it didn’t get much use. And it had a bed, which was the only meaningful part of the equation at the moment. 

Beyond that, not much else, Casey decided as he perused the rest of it. Only a heap of books, leather bound and aged, stacked against another wall. Next to that was a pile of periodicals, newspapers, some yellowed and worn. 

“Figures,” Casey mumbled after a quick assessment. “A book worm.”

Chuck was trying to look busy taking off his belt – and making not a lick of progress – but he glanced up with a confused look. “Did you say something?”

“It’s nothing.” With his back to him to hide his own inquisitiveness, Casey unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it off, tossing it on the small chair next to dresser. Lowering his chin, he began to count out his spare cartridges from his pocket now that he had some light – but in the corner of the mirror, the kid’s face caught his eye.

Casey didn’t move his head an inch, or even acknowledge the reflection, but Chuck had stopped dead, dark eyes pinned to his back. Eyes not filled with hatred, fear, or a dozen other emotions he had every right to feel, but this was something different. 

Curiosity? 

Not one to let him off the hook, Casey angled his head at the reflection and met his gaze, making Chuck’s brows fly up at being caught with his hand in the figurative cookie jar. “See something you like, brown eyes?” Casey turned, still bare-chested, and crossed his arms in front of him. “I’m not going to have to worry about your wandering hands tonight, am I?”

Chuck gave him a dirty look. Suddenly becoming interested in the rug, his hands came up to fumble with the buttons of the large shirt hanging on his slender frame. “Fuck off,” he said, deadly quiet. His face reddened, and with his fingers about half-way down the shirt he stopped and lowered them. As Casey eyed him, his hands curled into fists at his sides. 

“What’s that? Wanna take a swing at me, cupcake?”

Chuck turned to him. A jolt of rebellion seemed to make him stand straight, those brown eyes heated with intensity. “I mean it when I say you can go to hell,” he said, stepping closer. “Because your comments? Your digs at me …? The insinuations? I get it, okay?

“Whatever the hell you think you get,” Casey replied, mildly surprised by the kid’s sudden willfulness, “why don’t you get off your hind legs, pup, before I –”

“What, not cupcake? Princess?” Chuck wondered, still with the fists. They were shaking now. “More snide remarks about your virtue?” 

Casey gave him a hard look of warning. “I am too damn tired for this bullshit, so –”

“Fine. You want to hear it? I … like men. I always have, before I even knew there was a name or a label or whatever amusing term I’m sure is on the tip of your tongue.” The kid squared his shoulders, making the loose flap of Casey’s shirt fold down on itself, not cognizant that he now displayed a patch of chest hair, his bare flat stomach. “Is that what you wanted to hear? You want to say it, don’t you? Faggot. Fairy? Oh, I know – queen?

“Listen, kid.” Casey kept his gaze steady, schooling his features. “If you don’t shut the hell up –”

“You’ll do what?” Instead of backing down, the kid took a few insolent steps in his direction. “Let me guess. Do you want to kick my ass?”

Sonovabitch. This little shit was starting to piss him off, way more than usual. Casey felt a muscle flex along his jaw, and sauntered in a step. “I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt here, boy,” he said, his voice dropping to that deep, dangerous register. “That it’s the knock on your head making you talk like this … and that you really don’t want to challenge me. So, close your trap and get some rest.” 

“Come on. You know you want to try and beat it out of me.” Chuck regarded him without wavering. Then thinking about it, his hands came up, making quick work of last few buttons. “I’m sure you want this back.”

“This very second, muffin? Not especially.”

“You can have it.” Chuck tugged off the shirt and tossed it on the floor, fully revealing his rangy torso, like a unconscious strip tease. He folded his arms over his chest, which meant Casey had to focus on the swell of his biceps, the lean muscular slope of his chest, down to the trail of hair on his lower belly; all hard and wiry from the manual labor at the farm. “Don’t worry, I promise I didn’t get anything on it.” The kid glanced up. “I only have one question.”

“Can’t wait to hear it,” Casey said gruffly, lifting his chin to stare him down.

It had to be audacity that pushed Chuck to take another step, precariously walking into a staked-out territory very few crossed. No one came this close. But he did. Standing there, tall and half naked, the kid fully studied him. “Tell me. What was it?” 

“Lemme give you a piece of advice, city boy – I’d back up if I were you.” Casey gave in to one last cursory glance of him, his sinewy upper body taut as a whip, dark eyes flickering …. It made him think of places he had taken other men, places he should not be thinking of with this kid. He’d bring only trouble, and Casey had enough of that to fill a canyon. 

“I want to know what told you. About me. And I’m not asking.” The kid met his gaze, and if he felt any self-consciousness about his bare skin this close to him, he was hiding it damn well. “I want to hear it.” 

The slight edge in Casey’s height came in handy sometimes. Like now. His patience worn thin, he leaned in close, watching Chuck’s turbulent expression fade, his eyes widening when he realized he had poked a bear with a mighty short stick.

Chuck blinked at him for a moment and finally edged backwards. “That crossed the line – and I –”

“No. You want me to tell you?” Yeah. One time, he would do it. “Got a better idea. I’ll show ya.”

“Sh-show?” Whatever Chuck was thinking, it took his voice up a few octaves. “That’s … really not –”

“Oh, for Chrissakes,” Casey grumbled. He got to him before Chuck could slide back, and reaching out for his jaw, he cupped it tightly. “Come here,” he said, and ignoring the fight in the kid’s eyes, he steered his face towards the mirror. Made Chuck really look at himself. “Hold still.”

“Do you mind getting your freakin’ paw off of me?!”

“Look,” Casey ordered. He moved him closer, felt the brush of warm skin on his wrist as the kid squirmed uselessly. “See that?”

Knowing the battle was impossible to win, Chuck’s muscles relaxed, just enough to shift his gaze to his own reflection. “I think I’m familiar with the face,” he ground out between his teeth, “So yes – what about it?”

“I don’t think you do.” With his lips near his cheek, being this close, he could hear hard breath in Chuck’s chest. But this idiot kid. He wanted to shake him. “I’m only saying this once. You think you’re a mistake.”

“N-no, that’s not true.” His voice was low, unsure. “Let me … would you stop holding me like this?”

“I’ve made mistakes. Plenty of them, kid.” Casey clenched his fingers in, not enough to hurt, enough to make him stop pulling away. “And I sure as hell don’t grovel to religion. Have no use for it.” 

“Ow. What … what does this have to do with anything?”

“This. If I did, I’m fairly certain, brown eyes, God doesn’t make mistakes. Not like this.” At this, his fingertips dug in to the flesh of his cheek, making Chuck bite down on his lip. “You’re a lot of things, kid,” Casey said, his voice rough, “but you’re not a mistake.”

“That’s … not it. I don’t think I’m – let go, God dammit!”

“Besides, boyo,” he growled, ready to give his chain a good yank. “Who would put eyelashes like that on a man…without a damn good reason?”

“You … son of a bitch.” Chuck glared at him, humiliated, and wrenched his head free. “Guess a serious answer was too much to ask for.” The kid looked down, finally becoming aware of his half-nakedness, and blushed. “Where’s my undershirt?”

“Don’t look at me,” Casey said, a smirk on his lips.

Glowering, Chuck opened a drawer and began pawing through it. “I just wanted to know. Is it stamped on my forehead? Is there a secret handshake?” Cynicism oozed as he yanked out an undershirt, closing the drawer with his hip. “Because all my life, I’ve wondered why people think they know me when they don’t know a damn –”

“Christ,” Casey said under his breath. “Is it stamped on mine?”

“And let’s just say, they – everyone – make judgments before – well… never mind. But if there’s something others can pick up on, do you mind telling me what it is, just so I can – oh.” He lifted his head through the opening of the shirt, that wild-ass hair of his standing up in waves. “What … did you just say?”

“You heard me.” Casey went back to unbuttoning his pants and slipping out of them. “Mind turning around, cupcake?”

“But … wait. Did you hear what I said? Maybe you didn’t – because when I said – well, whatever I just said – you said something that could mean –”

“Nuh-uh. No you don’t. What I said wasn’t an engraved invitation for some soul-searching, and I sure as hell don’t do weepy lady feelings, kid.” Casey zipped his pack, and wearing only his undershorts, he threw the bag on the chair, then turned to face him. “Just shut the hell up, accept it, and get on with your fucking life.” 

Chuck tilted his head, his eyes sweeping down Casey’s chest, back up again. Still fuddled, he cleared his throat. “First, you might want to reconsider penning that book of witty life lessons.” He stared a little more. “But look at you.”

“What about me?” Casey asked, rubbing his palm over his tensed shoulders.

“I …. Really?” Chuck slowly backed up, his leg hitting the corner of the mattress. He jolted and moved in the other direction, eyes still on him. “If I’m a little, I don’t mean to be – but look at you! You’re ….” 

“What,” Casey said, a hard edge creeping in. 

Chuck waved his hand in the air at him. “That. Okay? Most men either crap their pants or run if they see you coming! No one would … I mean, it’s not the first thing a person thinks when they meet a good-looking stranger seven feet tall and shoulders as wide as – oh.”

“Kid?” Casey said, biting on his lower lip to fight a grin. “This is probably a good time to shut up, eh?” 

“Well. Okay, yes.” His lips twisted into a frown. “I … should get a blanket.”

Casey leaned on the dresser, eyes skimming over him as Chuck pulled a woven Indian blanket from a drawer. Did that boyish dark-eyed kid, modest and shy and gangly, just call him good looking? Hell. In his lifetime, men had a lot of names for him, but that wasn’t one. But this kid …. 

Jesus, was there anything he wasn’t going to put to the test? 

Casey swallowed. Instead of stopping him, he just watched with amused interest as the kid unfurled the blanket, took two corners, and shook it out. Satisfied, he lay flat on his back, wriggled his shoulders, and folded the other half over him.

The larger man sighed. “Comfortable?” he asked, scratching his hand through his stubble.

“I guess. As much as one could be.” Lowering his head, Chuck pulled the blanket up and closed his eyes. “Are you … going to get the light?”

Casey took his time considering the naïve young man on the floor, stretched out beneath him. Is that so, kid? Though brown eyes would be sure to kick up a row at what would come next, it was gonna happen. 

Purposefully, Casey pushed off from the dresser, sauntered up to him. Then he moved over him, one foot on each side, straddling his hips. He nudged.

It took all of a half a second for Chuck’s eyes to pop open, startled at the touch on his ribcage. He tipped his chin, his eyes traveling from muscled calves, to his chest, and finally up to his face. “Y-yes?” Chuck licked his lips. “Do … you need something?” 

“Cupcake?” Casey sunk down on his haunches, his eyes narrowed.

“I’m not going to answer to that,” Chuck replied, muffled against the blanket up to his chin.

“You just did,” Casey told him, nudging him again with his foot. “What are you doing?”

“Uh, sleeping?”

“So, let me get this straight.” Casey sat back on his heels and resumed his enjoyment of the kid’s confusion. “I spent three goddamn hours chasing your scrawny ass through a river, up a ridge, into a tree … and now you think you’ll just sack out here tonight?

“Well, yes, that’s sort of what –”

“And I suppose you hope I’m a sound sleeper, too. Maybe this time you’ll make it into town?”

“I … no! Nothing like that!” His eyes blew wide, mystified, and for a smart boy, he hadn’t quite figured out what came next. “Are you … really, I’m good here. Honest, I won’t –”

“Up.” To avoid the stammering and feet dragging part of the argument, he grabbed the kid by his elbows and yanked him up. “Go,” he demanded. He pointed him at the bed and gave him a good shove in the middle of his back. “You’re sleeping there.”

“Oh, no.” Despite his best efforts of digging his heels in, Chuck landed on the patchwork quilt a little harder than Casey had intended. “Hey, watch it!” he said, his head snapping up. Resentment mingled with uneasiness across his face. “I never said … that I would –” 

“What’re you yapping about?”

“Just because I ….” Chuck started, scooting away until his back hit the wall. “Ah. I’m n-not –”

“Oh, Jesus,” Casey muttered. He shook his head and grabbed his jaw again, demanding he listen. “Whatever is going through that crazy head of yours, princess, it is not gonna happen.”

Never. Nope. Impossible if he thought there was any scenario where it would. 

Chuck, forced to look at him, clamped his fingers into the blanket and swallowed. “Okay,” he finally managed. “I get it. Let go.”

“Good.” Casey seized a pillow, flattened it. “You get that side.” Without pausing to let him bitch about it, Casey climbed in behind him and stretched out his legs. The move trapped the kid on the side of the bed against the wall, letting Casey’s body make a formidable blockade. “Now shut your trap and go to sleep.”

Casey saw the kid mulling it over. He wondered what Chuck could possibly be thinking through now, because he had done the kid a favor by taking the decision making part out of the equation, hadn’t he? 

At least Chuck was catching on – if he wanted to get out, he’d have to go through him. And being the educated Boston school boy he was, brown eyes probably figured going through a wall of rock would be easier. Not moving, Chuck watched him with those damn eyes, his back to the wall, hardly breathing by the sound of it. “I wasn’t implying – I just ….” 

Seriously, boyo, your virginity is intact. 

He repeated it to himself, just in case his brain and every other part of his anatomy was not fucking paying attention. 

Casey laid back and waited. It took a few minutes, while he closed his eyes and played possum, but finally, he felt the mattress shift next to him. Giving in, he heard Chuck take a deep breath, and slowly, carefully lower himself, folding the blanket up to his chest. The kid stretched out his legs, not touching, not flexing, or shifting an arm … but the heat from a flushed body next to Casey made his long limbs unwind, relax …. 

Until Casey heard him wet his lips, a tell-tale sign that the kid had something to say. No matter how badly he didn’t want to hear it, he lifted an arm across the pillow and turned his head before he could stop himself. Oh, hell. Sure enough, those brown eyes were on him. 

“What?” he said, almost groaning that he had asked.

Shifting tentatively, Chuck pushed himself up on his elbow, careful to keep his distance. “You can’t blame me for being … well, surprised. You’re just not what I expected, that’s all.”

Shit. He didn’t need to hear this. He needed to lay low for a few more days, get the hell out, and never find this desolate basin again. 

Casey closed his eyes, and barely recognized his own voice when he answered. “It seems to me when we were around the table a few hours ago – before you decided to go on a little night-time adventure – you said something about not judging you, cupcake. Also seems to me that makes you a hypocrite.”

The kid blinked at him, started to say something but faltered. He made the error of glancing down, until he noticed that Casey had his blanket pushed low around his hips. Not daring to look towards the layer of curly chest hair, the narrow point arrowing down to his navel, he rubbed his eyes. “That’s what I mean, I guess.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m a hypocrite. You’re right. But what I didn’t expect … well… I had you pegged for a big mean – don’t take this the wrong way – dumbass.” 

Casey grunted. “I’m sure I’ll take it the way it was meant.”

The curve of a smile. Small, tentative but it was there. After a long stare, one that did not send a fiery spike to Casey’s belly, Chuck rolled back to look up at the ceiling, the soft smile disappearing once the kid registered he shouldn’t. “I don’t think you’re that.”

The room was too stuffy. Suffocating. He didn’t need any more soul-baring confessions tonight, ones that may drive him to his knees. Casey’s eyes cut to the side, sweeping over the pale profile against the dark. With his head turned, the kid didn’t notice the way Casey memorized his face. A crooked slope to his nose … one that seemed somehow to fit. Eyes far away, weary. 

He listened as the kid’s breath evened out, chest rising and falling.

Damn him. His attention lingered on his mouth, the column of his throat. Look at this kid. Trying to read through him, know who he was. Only Liam, the harshest bastard he had ever met, knew him from underneath. He had figured him out long ago, but his boss was a man who epitomized abusive power, coupled with the desire to hurt. To take. 

Everything this kid was not. 

“So you had your question.” Casey’s voice was low, hedging his bet that the kid wasn’t asleep. “My turn.”

His eyes drifted open, proving Casey was right. Chuck kept them focused on the bare rafters above them. “I don’t owe you anything.” But another humorless smile crossed his mouth, giving away his willingness to listen. 

“Is that why you’re here?”

His mouth tightened. When Chuck turned to him, he looked at Casey with dark eyes that were serious, more intent than Casey remembered. “What do you mean?”

“Living here. By yourself. On a farm in the middle of a place … well, if nowhere had a second cousin twice removed, this place would be it. Away from your family?” When he didn’t immediately respond, Casey fought the urge to slide his fingers into the tangle of curls, to steer his face closer, to make him …. But touching would be toxic. “So I’m asking you kid, is that the reason?

Chuck’s throat bobbed before he spoke. “I’ll answer it in one word – and that’s all you’re going to get. No.” Emphatically, he rolled to face the wall. “And one more thing,” Chuck added.

“No,” Casey replied just as grumpily.

“Hah. But I should warn you, that’s Buddy’s spot, so be prepared to wake up with a fifteen pound cat on your head at some point during the night.” He pulled the blanket over his shoulder. “Good night.”

Casey felt a slow, lazy grin form, pointed at the back of his ruffled head. His guess was that the kid was probably cringing to himself right about now, because the last two words had slipped out automatically, before Chuck knew they were out of his mouth.

“Night, sweet cheeks.”

-x-

A fuzzy, tickling paradox emerged from the trap of sleep, as if two opposite corners, the brilliant surge of day and the shadow of night, came together. Pain was rooted on one end, and the bone along his upper arm, the back of his shoulder ached because of it. 

From the other edge of the spectrum, there was a pleasant wash of heat, the curve of a body molded to his. And being pulled into wakefulness, the contradiction of something yielding yet firm edged into his brain. Crystallized.

Two bodies held together.

Dammit.

Casey breathed in heavily and shifted a leg under the blanket, feeling the brush of a long limb against his thigh. He left it there, figuring he’d move it away … in a second. Kid was dead to the world anyway. 

When he wriggled his shoulder, sore muscles sent a quiver down his arm, reminding Casey that he was an idiot for lifting a dead-weight man when he had a bullet hole in his shoulder. He could’ve left him there in the woods for a bear or a wolf to stumble upon. The scent of blood from the head wound would’ve brought them …. 

But if this kid was a mystery, then the reason he brought him back was utterly cataclysmic. 

He shouldn’t let his thoughts wander… while his body was sculpted dangerously into his heat, bare skin to bare skin.

Casey dipped his chin, looking to the side, and squinted into a mess of tousled hair. Holy God, he was a beautiful kid. He sniffed over his head, filling his lungs. He still carried the scent of the woods and the rushing creek he had traversed in the dead of night. Because he was that desperate to get away from him.

Get away.

Yes, he should.

Now an unwanted distraction was pressed to his side. A distraction in the form of an infuriating young man whose head rested on Casey’s good upper arm, his stubbly cheek tucked into his neck. Long and angular, the kid was all lean muscle, yet smooth and unresisting. Buried against him, deeply asleep.

Warmth coiled in his lower belly and settled there, the overwhelming sensation to stay. He could lie there, for just another minute. One. That’s all.

No, he shouldn’t. He should move. Not smooth his hand over the dark waves, fingertips across his jaw, his temple, whispering a touch. Who was he kidding? Anyone but this one.

Opening sleepy eyes wider, Casey ducked his head for one last look; a wild tuft of hair tickled the underside of his chin, his warm, easy breath grazed the sensitive flesh of his collar bone. 

He caught the groan of frustration before it burbled in his chest. 

Another detail became clear, and he lifted his head a mere inch to confirm the craziest touch – yep, long fingers curled over his hip, a loose hold right above the band of his undershorts. At the brief stimulation of his leg to Chuck’s side, sparse hair on the kid’s chest teasing his ribcage, a part of his anatomy that was pissing him off for this responded, stretching against the undershorts and not giving a fuck that this was not the time, nor the man to react like this ... not the man to have.

Shit.

Though brown eyes had managed to keep his gawky limbs to himself for now, Casey half-expected to feel him slide one of his legs over his knees if he stayed still long enough.

Which he sure as hell was not going to do. 

Each movement excruciating, slow, Casey pushed the blankets to the side and eased his bulky body out of the bed, crossing the room to get dressed, and no way in hell should he look back at the bed. Or, to be more exactly, the sleeping young man in the bed. 

Not mine. He repeated it a few times, just in case a certain stubborn asshole wasn’t listening.

No matter how tough, hurt, gentle, or vulnerable this kid seemed, he was still the biggest damn mistake John Casey could chase in this life. 

-x-End Chapter Six Wings of Grace-x-


	7. Chapter Seven

Wings of Grace

Chapter Seven

“Is it … dead?” Chuck asked, pulling his tan coat a little tighter around his middle. “Or just sleeping?”

“What do you think, brown eyes?”

Lifting his gaze from the recently departed animal curled on the ground, the kid had two reasons to bristle at him. One, he wished the man would cease with the nickname, a familiar and honeyed one that he had no right to use, and two, why did he have to be a sarcastic bastard when he was only asking what he thought was a straightforward question?

“Well, fine. Since his little arm is bent like that, which I don’t think is a natural pose for – yes, I guess he’s dead.”

“Then why are you standing there?” Casey hooked a hand on his belt and lifted the round barrel Winchester rifle to rest on his shoulder. “Pick it up. That’s your job. I’m the one taking care of the shootin’ part, or did you forget?”

“Considering you’ve reminded me, what, three times so far?” Chuck huffed. “It’d be a little hard to forget.” But just to be certain the brown squirrel had indeed met his Rodent Maker, Chuck toed him with his boot. When the animal remained limp, he bent down –

– and something warm and firm pinched his waist right below his jacket.

“Shit.” The kid tossed the squirrel in the burlap sack, spun around, and shot Casey a dirty look. “Why did you – is there something funny about doing that?”

Casey shrugged. “Not as much as the first few times, leannan. But, yeah. Now grab it and let’s move.”

“Wait. Aren’t we done? That’s three squirrels and the jack rabbit that had the unfortunate timing to be in my garden this morning. Doesn’t that mean we can go back now?” Chuck tilted his head toward the sky, looking past the branches to the grey veil overhead. “Besides, a storm is coming. I’d prefer not to get stuck in the rain, which we will if we don’t turn around.”

“Keep walking,” Casey told him, already sauntering up the path with his gun cradled close to his body. “And try not to drop the bag.”

“But how much more do we need? Really. I think what we have here is plenty –”

Before Chuck could have his own personal mutiny, Casey turned around, grabbed a handful of his shirt, and yanked him up the path. “Plenty, eh? Did you get a good look at those critters, Bartowski?”

“Can you let go of my – do you mind keeping your muck forks off of me?” Frowning, Chuck wrapped his fingers over Casey’s hand … God, he has very warm hands … and pulled hard. “Yes, I got a look, considering I was the one that had to throw them in the sack.”

“Did that seem like enough meat on those bones to you?”

“I’d rather not think about – are you going to let go? I’m walking, okay?” So maybe it was more like stumbling on Casey’s heels, with a trip or two on a loose rock thrown in, but semantics. He was following, wasn’t he? “Do you have to be so –?”

“So what?” Casey turned. Since he still had a convenient hold on Chuck’s jacket, it took no effort for him to give the kid a little shake. “Care to finish that?”

“Um, no.” Chuck’s head inched backwards, ever so slightly, as Casey leaned in closer. “Nothing. I only meant … so, okay, I’ll give that much to you. Their little arms and legs probably don’t pack that much meat, do they?”

Casey grunted, this one approximating damn straight. He must’ve figured the dragging penance was over, however, and released his jacket. “Let’s go,” he ordered, not slackening his march.

“Asshole,” Chuck breathed, not loud enough to hear, but loud enough to feel vindicated. Frankly, he was perturbed at the manhandling Casey seemed to be fond of, and decided to show it by stopping to straighten his coat, purposefully slowing down the pace. “You know, Vic and Jack have to be getting thirsty, don’t you think, tied up to that tree trunk back there?” Besides, they had been walking along the ridge for a good half hour and enough already. Stopping to lean against a tree, Chuck folded his arms over his chest. “Hey. I’m going back,” he announced flatly.

Casey turned around. Chuck’s act of defiance earned him an eye roll that he wanted to be sure the kid saw.

Chuck returned it with a dirty look and held his ground.

“Eh.” Casey eyed him. “The hell you are,” he replied. Without even aiming, a strong hand grabbed his wrist, giving him no choice but to be led along the edge of the grove or be hauled bodily. “You’re coming with me, so light a shuck under that skinny ass –”

“Dammit – ow.” He was being dragged again. Not able to see beyond Casey’s broad back, Chuck had to dodge a limb over the path that the other man had stepped over. “Shuck. What does that even mean?”

“It means you’re making enough of a racket to scare off every fu – shhh!” Casey cocked his head to the side and held up a finger in warning. “Not a word,” he hissed out the side of his mouth. “Listen.”

Leaves rustled overhead, birds called out, spindly grasses bent to the wind, whispering. Chuck held his breath and waited, somewhat confused by Casey’s rigid stance, his grip becoming firmer. What had he heard to make him stand tall like that? Another hunter or traveler? The thought of shouting out occurred to him, but it dissolved a split second later when the garbled noise hit his ears.

Kee kee run, kee kee run.

Chuck squinted in the direction of the noise. “What … what is it?”

A nudge in the ribs sufficed as an answer. Casey let go of his shirt, sliding his hand down the rifle, over the walnut stock. “Get down. Here.” The large man hunkered, and pulled Chuck to his knees behind him. A fallen, rotting tree trunk, worm holes and loose bark, proved to be a decent cover from whatever was making that sound. “Don’t say a word.”

Without a better plan at the moment, Chuck hunched down next to him, wincing when he snapped a twig. “You still haven’t said –”

“Shh!” Casey told him, finger twitching over the trigger.

“But –”

“Get your head down.” Not waiting, his hand landed on the top Chuck’s messy brown waves and pushed, since the kid wasn’t moving fast enough for his liking. Then his palm slipped down to clutch his arm, not hurting, but holding. Stay. “Do you want him to see you? Why don’t you just wave a flag and do the polka to let him know we’re here?”

Scowling, Chuck made the snap decision to ignore the dig on his heritage. “Who?”

Casey raised his head, looking past a stand of saplings. “Hear that call?” He murmured it, keeping his voice low. “Means the flock is scattered. He’ll move along the grassy area until the young ones gather.”

Chuck sat up on his haunches and followed the direction of his eyes, beyond a thicket to a patch of wooly shrubs and nettles. Only then did he see the fan of tail feathers ruffling, brown and tawny with a band of black. And there was no doubt in his mind that the feathers were attached to the largest damn bird he would ever lay eyes on.

“Is that –?”

“What part of shut the hell up is foreign to you?”

“But is it a turkey?” Chuck mouthed.

Casey took his eyes off the target long enough to turn and stare at him. “No, your half-dead horse stuck a pile of feathers up his ass and learned to gobble so that he could pull a prank on us. Surprise, eh?”

The kid blinked up at him. He opened his mouth, thought about it, and settled on a one finger wave to let him know what he thought of his humor.

Lifting the rifle, Casey’s shoulders straightened, and his blue eyes locked on the shot. “Kid?” he said.

“Thought I wasn’t supposed to talk?” Chuck shot him a smart-aleck grin, congratulating himself. “Or were you only –”

“New rule,” the man growled out the side of his mouth, eyes still pinned to the distant target. “Show me that finger again, and I’ll be handing it to you with the arm still attached. Got that?”

“What? I was only … oh.” He peeked over at the stranger. The iron line of his jaw, hands the size of a bucket, clenched around the barrel. His imagination told him what they were capable of, and his brief flash of gallantry evaporated. Sitting back on his heels, the kid moved a prudent distance away and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

It was getting cold out, that’s all. It had nothing to do with his fondness for that finger.

Or his arm, for that matter.

“Yeah. There you go,” Casey breathed, squinting down the end of the barrel. “One more … step ….”

“Who … are you talking to –”

The blast and puff of smoke sailed next to his head.

His heart lurched. Chuck took a deep breath, ready to scream, when another rifle shot rang out. Reflexively, he squeezed his eyes shut and put his hands over his ears, keeping his ear drums from bouncing out of his head.

He really hoped a man like Casey didn’t see that little act of heroism.

As the echo of the shot faded, Chuck cracked one eye open and glanced up. Straight into an arrogant smirk.

“City boy?” Casey said, lowering the rifle from his shoulder.

“What now?” Chuck fell back on his rear end into the dirt and rubbed the side of his head. “And just because I answered doesn’t mean I’m admitting to anything like being a city boy, or –”

“Easy, pancake.” The man chuckled at him and wiped his forearm over his brow. “I was going to tell you where the game fell, since you accidently closed your eyes right then.”

“Sorry, are you talking? You’ll have to grunt with gusto, because I just lost all my hearing in that ear.”

Casey snorted and rose to his feet. “Follow me, boyo, and bring the bag. Hope you can carry this one. He’s not a lightweight.” It was not an accident that he gave the kid a speculative look at that last word. “C’mon. Move it.”

That son of a bitch. Even though the grass was wet, and the kid felt it seeping against his butt cheeks, he waited for him to turn. As soon as the asshole gave him that brief look of warning to do as he was told, and headed up the path to gather up the turkey, he flipped him off again.

Okay, so maybe it was his broad back that got the brunt of his ire, but still. It made him feel marginally better. When he deemed it safe, Chuck climbed to his feet, wiped the dirt off his britches, and followed.

“One more thing,” Casey said over his shoulder.

“Can’t wait,” Chuck grumbled.

“Whatever, you’re doing back there, I’d keep it to myself, princess. Don’t want a mishap, eh?” Casey lapsed into silence as Chuck shoved his hands in his pockets again to avoid any accidental dismemberment. “You should be paying attention, kid,” the man said without turning around. “Maybe you’ll learn how to survive out here.”

Chuck glanced over and raised his brows at Casey’s back. It didn’t seem possible, but he was positive Casey meant that with half an ounce of compassion for his troubles.

-x-

Under the hypnotic repetition of Vic’s gait, side to side, Casey let himself get lost in his thoughts. It had been sharply cloudy all morning, the wind ruffling the aspen leaves, bowing the acres of long grass halfway to the ground, tumbling, surging. The farm was still five miles down the trail from the rocky ledge where they now crossed, past brambles and milkweed, still holding dried seed pods. Even this late in the spring, the weather in the valley and up beyond the ridge could be fickle. The smell of a coming rain bled into his consciousness, making him spur Vic along.

Behind him, the kid made a noise and said something. Casey figured he could ignore it, but then he did it again. That time it wasn’t as easy to ignore, since the rhythmic clack of horse hooves slowed about twenty feet away.

He didn’t recall giving the kid permission to stop.

“I’ve been here,” he heard Chuck say. “Right here, on this ridge. I know what this is. I remember.”

“Dandy.” Adjusting the leather strap of the rifle, he turned in the saddle. “Now do you mind giving that carcass you’re riding on a jab in the ribs, kid? Vic hates to wait – and she doesn’t like to get wet, either, which I reckon will happen if we keep moving like this.”

“No, really, I mean hold on a minute.”

“Oh, shit.” Casey pulled the rein to the left, forcing Vic to break her confident trot. Sure enough, Chuck’s horse had come to a dead halt, which was a lot like his regular movement, Casey figured, so he had to look twice. Was the kid gonna make him short-rein the animal by the halter and tow them along? “What?” he asked.

So much of the morning had been spent listening to him, and now he wouldn’t answer. Just staring off to the right where an acre or two of flatland evened out before running to the edge of the forest.

“This is the place,” the kid finally answered. He shifted his gaze beyond the trail, forgetting the reins in his hand. “Last year, around this time, I was here.”

“Why is that important to you?”

“I’ll be right back … well, in a while.” Chuck let go of the reins altogether, hopped down, and began trudging through the grass.

“Not a chance. Storm’s coming – hey.” Casey sat up taller, fists digging into the saddle horn. “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get back on that damn horse.” He tried to quell the prickly heat of annoyance, but what had made the kid suddenly grow the balls to ignore him? “That was an order, Bartowski.”

“Pfft.” A noise. Directed at him. Even muttered under his breath, it sounded rebellious. “You and your orders,” Chuck said. He kept walking, crossing a tangled and perplexing thicket, stumbling and threading his way through without looking back. “You can follow me for once.”

Casey let out a deep growl. He had to push away the niggling detail that, inexplicably, he was letting the kid get away with it. Hell, every step of Chuck’s boots on the ground dared him to try and stop the boy.

“Kid’s crazy,” he said softly and swung his legs down, his boots landing with a soft thump. “Stay there, Vic. Keep an eye on that one.” He gave a sarcastic nod to Jackson. “Shouldn’t be too hard, eh, girl?”

As Casey jogged up behind him, he was grateful for a sizable stride to keep up with the kid. He was a tall one himself, that boy, reminding him of a colt. Jumpy, not easy to corral. Had a long pair of legs that he hadn’t quite mastered the use of, but could go from docile to a sprint at the drop of a hat.

Chuck finally slowed down on a rise, where the sloped expanse of field provided a glimpse to the canyon, the kid seeking something the other man couldn’t detect. Casey got closer, but lucky for the kid, he didn’t speed up if he heard him coming from behind. Just moving like everything was fine, Chuck strolled off the path, brushing his palm over the spindles of grass rippling in the stiff breeze. He seemed distracted, lost … more than the usual. “This way,” he called over his shoulder. “If you’re coming.”

Casey let out a swear between his teeth and added some speed. When the kid’s too-thin tan coat came within range of his arm, he reached out and grabbed a handful of it. “I said whoa, cupcake.”

“You have a thing for grabbing, don’t you?” Chuck made a point of looking down at Casey’s hand, curled around his sleeve. “Did I look like I was running?”

“Did you look like you were listening?” Casey snapped, exerting his place in the pecking order by not letting go. “I’m askin’. What is this about? Last year?”

Casey felt the muscles in Chuck’s arm relax. Then the kid licked his lips, a sign Casey was beginning to recognize as the signal lady-chatter and feelings were comin’. When the boy went all gentle-eyed, he braced himself for it.

“I … had only been here a few weeks – last spring – after I had ... left home.”

“Boston,” Casey filled in, since he had already wrangled that out of him.

“Yes.” Chuck looked down at his feet, seeming perturbed that Casey remembered that much. “I stumbled upon this place … and I could never find it again. Until now, I guess.”

“Yeah, well, what’s so special about it?”

It took a tug or two for the kid to free his arm from his grip. Chuck turned towards a patch of brambles, searching beyond it to a low spot bordering a clump of birch. “I’ll show you,” he said.

Casey started to open his mouth, letting the kid know show time was over and they were hitting the trail. Be a relief to get out of here. But when he slanted around, he had to do a double-take. Make it a triple.

Jesus, what was he doing? He hadn’t given the kid a reason to smile for four days. Why should he? He – the farm – it was just a safe haven to use up and go. The usual routine.

But now the crookedest, most blazin’ smile crossed his face. Probably a weapon as fine as a good rifle or a hunting knife.

“The pond. Okay, along the bank.” Chuck half-turned, giving him just that view of his angular profile. “Up that knoll ….”

Casey watched as the kid stopped in his tracks, running a hand over the curls at the back of his collar, considering the fork in the trail. Still with that cock-eyed grin on his face.

One thing was certain. Where ever it came from, whatever memory had provoked it, that smile sure as rain wasn’t meant from him. No one in his world smiled like this wide-eyed tenderhorn, unless they’re getting ready to fleece a man, or loading the bullets and taking aim. He understood fear and blood and good whiskey, things you could see or taste, not dealing with an obsessive personality, a dreamer. That smile of his. Not someone like him.

And taking a harder look at the kid, Casey wondered what it would be like to be caught in that beam of sunlight, be the reason it was put there.

It wasn’t until Casey found himself staring that he became certain of one thing. He should’ve left long ago. He should’ve just kept to the trail and by-passed this desolate basin. Passed over the farm with a kid who could smile like that.

“Did you hear me?” Chuck was asking.

“Hm?” Casey tipped his hat back, his face clouding up. That time, it wasn’t this brown-eyed boy pissing him off. It was himself, acting like a darn fool. Letting his thoughts wander like that, like this gawky kid, every which way.

Just when he convinced himself not to give a wit, Chuck turned to him, and he felt something like disgruntlement that the smile had vanished.

Looking away, he firmly pushed his hand into his holster and lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, something about … hell, not even worth repeating.”

“Really?” The kid looked over just to squint at him and rubbed the scruff on his jaw. “I’ve never met anyone who didn’t like them.”

“Like what?” Casey answered, irritated at revealing he hadn’t heard a word.

Chuck shot him a grin, but this particular version was leaning towards the wise-ass variety. Made Casey decide on the spot he didn’t care for that type of grin.

“Wild strawberries,” the kid said, like that was an explanation. “Over there.”

“Straw-berries?” Casey arched a brow, then let his eyes drift to the general vicinity of the knot on Chuck’s head. “Looney,” he muttered, reaching out to tap the side of his temple. “Having another one of your dizzy spells? Gonna faint on me?”

“Only if you plan on bleeding again,” Chuck said, which confirmed that he had picked up on the tiniest curl of Casey’s lip. “Follow me.”

“You the one giving the orders here?” he remarked, watching the kid pivot and stride up the path. Casey was ready to turn him around, but some part of his subconscious tripped, getting a glimmer past the surface, past that dorky kid. Not a kid, a man.

Reluctantly, he followed.

A good dozen paces behind him, he had a view of the back of his head, untidy thick dark curls. His tan worn coat. Roaming brought disquieting thoughts, musings of what was was under the jacket. He got a look, last night, before bed. Smooth pale skin. Shoulders and chest that weren’t exactly narrow, either, for a slender man. Had a flat stomach. Rangy and lean. Casey’s eyes lingered, went lower. Ass was kind of skinny.

Young and clueless. Never met someone as unawares of their handsomeness.

Up ahead, the kid stopped on the path, balanced on the balls of his feet, looking past the row of brambles. His stance lengthened his body, every muscle, from his slender waist and hips, down his long legs –

“Are you coming?” Chuck asked. “Directions aren’t really my forte.”

Casey shook off his thoughts and pulled up his collar. “Putting it mildly.”

“But I’m fairly certain … it’s this way.”

It looked like just another field to him, but the kid seemed to think he knew where he was leading them. For once, Casey accepted it, accepted being led around by an odd city boy who didn’t belong out here. With him.

He took them down a slight slope, loose rocks tumbling past their feet, through rippling grass. Like a bloodhound, Chuck turned slightly, making an erratic shift, and Casey barely stopped himself from slamming into his back more than once.

The spiraling, warbling birds gave it away. Black-sheened against the layered grey sky, they swooped between the twisted ground vines, calling out, dodging down and lifting as they plucked away the wild berries. A rasping crow squawked at their arrival, sending the flock climbing skyward as the men drew nearer.

“Damn scavengers,” Casey observed under his breath.

“Well, if you stand there, they’ll get all of them.” Chuck knelt down and picked a few, popping them in his mouth. “Pass me your hat.”

A frown appeared on Casey’s face. “I’m not giving you my hat.”

“What else do you expect me to use?” Dark eyes pointed up at him, and the kid held out a hand expectantly, curling his fingers. “Hand it over.”

Casey folded his arms over his chest, “No.”

Chuck stood, crossing his arms and mirroring his posture. “God, you are the most stubborn bastard.”

“Your sweet talk will get you nowhere, brown eyes,” Casey said, coming close enough to use that extra inch of height over him. “Not takin’ my hat.”

Chuck fell back a step, startled. His mouth opened, then closed, and after a few more squawks of those birds overhead, his features smoothed out, giving him an open look. But something was swirling in that mop head of his. “I’ll … this is going to sound odd,” he started, “And I really shouldn’t –”

“Say it.”

“I’ll make us … no, never mind. Let’s just –”

Casey caught Chuck by the collar, hauling him back. “Talk.”

“A … a pie. Geez! I can bake a pie, for us, or however you want to share it.” Maybe it was the choke hold on his collar, but the kid turned as red as the wild berries. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d hold in your laughter on this subject.”

“Pie?” Casey fought a mystified look and smirked over at him, pleased that the kid had fallen back to his stammery-jittery self. Needed to be put in his place. “Hate to break it to you, but I’ve seen you in the kitchen the past few days. Kind of reminds me of a black bear cub trying to jolly itself with a frying pan.”

Casey noticed the kid stiffen and look to the side. “I promise. Pie is my … well, I have several hidden assets, where my level of competence could be considered proficient. Pie is one.”

It took everything for Casey to keep his face blank. Wouldn’t do to have this kid see him smile. “Hidden … assets?”

As he intended, the near genius caught the lewd jibe between the eyes. Chuck jerked back and coughed in his hand – and Casey decided then and there he liked that color on his cheeks. “Uh, pie. Making strawberry pie. That I can do.”

“Pie.” It took Casey a moment to process it, staring at him without a blink. Eventually, the taste in his mouth made him push the hat back on his head. “Can’t believe I’m having this conversation. Let alone even thinking about this.” Begrudgingly, he slipped the hat off and passed it to him. “But congratulations, kid, and you better hope this damn pie is up to snuff. Because my hidden asset is my discerning tastes.”

“Discerning?” Chuck narrowed his eyes at him. “You surprise me sometimes. Your flare for words is a little unexpected from a man who ….” He waved a hand vaguely in the vicinity of his chest. “Well, is all of … that.”

Casey grunted. “Get moving.”  
-x-

Maybe the kid was onto something, Casey figured, rolling the tart-sweet berry around in his mouth. Yesterday, there was a chance they weren’t as pure red or as honeyed. Tomorrow, they’d be picked clean by the black birds, swoopin’ and divin’. But today, only today, they were damn near perfect, pristine, the way snow can be right after blanketing the ground, before man and animal and wind break through the diamond crust, scattered footprints, saying they were there.

Casey also figured the kid knew what was going on, right about the time Chuck leaned down and emptied the berries he had been cradling in the hem of his shirt. They tumbled down, only filling the hat half-way at best.

“Boy, this is going a little slower than I thought.” Chuck’s attention settled on him, brows climbing when he met Casey’s gaze of indifference. “Probably not for the best to keep doing that.”

“Doing what?” Casey asked, tossing a handful into the hat.

“You know, eating them all?”

“You accusing me of something?”

“No, n-not in particular.” The kid cleared his throat. “It’s just that, I’d bet my horse –”

“Or maybe something of value?”

“That you’re eating as many strawberries as you’re picking.” Giving him one meaningful look through those long lashes of his, Chuck then strolled to the spot where he had left off and scratched the back of his head. “Worse than the birds,” he said quietly.

“Just testing a few. Making sure you’re not trying to poison me.” Still on his knees, Casey looked over towards Chuck, watching him, saying nothing. The kid didn’t look like an upscale Easterner, not with those splotches of dirt on his pants where he had been down on his knees, his head bent as he worked, then looking up at him ….

“What’re you looking at?” Chuck drew in a breath and glimpsed past his shoulder. “Is there something over there that I –”

“Nothing. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer not to get soaked, so you need to pick faster.” Casey looked up at the sky. “Can’t believe I got talked into this,” he mumbled. “Why is this even important to you? Strawberry pie?”

A shadow crossed his face, something fragile right under the surface. “My sister,” he replied at last. “Because of her.”

“The lady who wants to be a doctor?” Casey couldn’t repress the sardonic noise. “Next thing, they’ll want to vote … or own property.”

“You don’t know … Ellie.” Chuck’s voice wavered on the last word. “She can do whatever she sets her mind to. Ellie’s the one who taught me how to make pie.” Embarrassed, he shifted on his knees to move farther down the row. “My mother grew strawberries … and after she … well, we learned to do things for ourselves. Ellie learned how to bake, and taught me … pie. That’s the only thing I know how to make, really.”

“Taught ya, eh?”

“Yes.” The kid bunched his lips and ran his hand over that little bit of stubble again. The shadow cleared briefly, just giving way to a peek of venerability, before he swallowed and scooted down the row.

Casey kept his head down and breathed deep, let it out. Even if he could, why would he want to do something to take the hurt away? He was the one puttin’ it there, the way he pressed his lips together, his mouth serious, eyes dark ….

Honest to God, why did you throw this one in the path now?

He’d spent his life brushing off liabilities, and then there’s this kid.

Hell, wasn’t he always caught in the knots of fate?

Shaking his head at his own idiocy – for the tenth time over these past few days – he leaned back on his heels, picking up a berry or two, rolling it between his fingers.

“The only thing? Wish you would’ve told me that little gem before the parsnips and burnt eggs,” he told him, tossing a berry in his mouth. “That grub has been sitting like a boulder in my –”

“You thief.”

“Thief? I prefer entrepreneur. Maybe financier,” Casey corrected, flicking another berry overhead. Up it sailed, then down … down … and he managed to catch it in his teeth. “Never just a thief. Thieves get caught.”

“Smart ass.” Chuck scoffed and rolled his eyes. “And for the record? I did just catch you – eating the berries? See? I knew it should be full by now.”

Casey smirked faintly and swallowed down another. “Then pick faster.”

“Me?” Toying with a berry between his fingers, the kid rose on the back of his heels. A thought, a mischievous one, flicked briefly over his features. “Yeah? Here’s one for you, financier.” With better aim than he had mastered with his pop-gun the other night, when he had targeted Casey’s head, he lobbed one at him. “Try that one.”

So Casey tipped his head back and caught it in his teeth. “Thanks, cupcake.” He gave him smug little half-shrug and went back to picking.

Chuck blinked at him. “Bet you can’t do that again.”

“Try me.”

The moment he said it, Chuck zinged another one at him.

And quickly rising on his knees, leaning over to the left, Casey snagged it out of the air. When he sat back, he smiled at him and chewed it between his teeth.

Chuck gaped.

“Wait, seriously? How do you … that’s from twenty feet, at least.” Chuck ran a hand over the back of his neck, plotting his next move. “Okay, enough,” he said, and Casey could see him rolling a berry around in his palm. “That’s quite a hidden talent of your own you have there, entrepreneur. But you will not be able to –”

The strawberry was in Casey’s mouth before the kid could rattle off the rest.

His catch surprised a laugh out of the kid. “How …. You shit head!” Sitting back on his heels, Chuck studied Casey’s guiltless expression. “That’s not possible.”

Casey settled back on his haunches and put his hands on his thighs. A derisive put down was on the tip of his tongue, ready to fly, but when he looked at the kid, his voice went still.

Chuck faced him squarely, those goofy expressive brows of his drawing down, reading him with a pair of warm brown eyes. Then slowly, starting small, his lips curved. Oh, hell. A smile grew on his face like lazy evening sunshine, lopsided and real, and this time, the grin was for him.

And just like that, Casey’s insides heated at the smile.

 

Oh, don’t look at me like that.

Some part of his consciousness realized what a snake pit that smile could be. Casey looked to the side, the sharp lines of his face hardening. Damned if he was going to get away with this.

“Let’s go.” His voice sounded gruff, even to him. “We shouldn’t be out here like this. Gonna rain – and someone could be watching us.”

That alone wiped out the smile completely.

Chuck laid a hand on the ground to steady his knees, but otherwise stayed still, his eyes fastened on Casey. Overhead, the iron-grey sky brewing had nothing on the kid’s face. What Casey had wiped clean was now full of pain and regret.

“You’re … you’re right,” Chuck said, more to himself than aloud. Lifting his hand, he made an absent motion to touch the lump on his temple, remembering, tracing his fingers over the swell there. “I shouldn’t be out here with you … like this. I let my guard down.” Strawberries tumbled as Chuck let the hem of his shirt fall. With his clumsy gracefulness, he climbed to his feet. “This isn’t funny or … and I shouldn’t have even thought this would be …. Because this is a mistake.”

“Hey, slow down.” Getting that itchy feeling this was about to go bad, Casey got tall on his knees. “I don’t know what the hell you think –”

“No.” Chuck licked his lips. Whatever reasoning was going through his head, he pinned those dark eyes on him and backed up a step. “I can’t … stay.”

“Listen, if you don’t pick up those – hey. Hey! Where the hell do you think you’re going? Get back here!”

Jesus. Of course, he didn’t. Listen or stop, for that matter. Instead, the kid had turned, shoved off, and hit a dead sprint before Casey could scramble to his feet.

“You little … bastard,” Casey said under his breath, the comment holding more disbelief than fury. Nothing surprised him anymore, and then came this kid. Tripping him up, because now he was actually staring at Chuck’s lanky legs, eating up ground, slicing through the brambles –

“Oh, you’re wrong, city boy. That was your mistake,” Casey murmured low in his throat. Fists clenched, he took off after him before the kid could put more of the open grassy field between. Son of a bitch. For now, he swallowed down the urge to kick his ass for this little stunt when he caught him by his chicken neck.

‘Cause he would catch him.

Crashing through the nettles ahead of him, Chuck dodged to the right, switched paths in a reckless decision, and nearly tripped over a jumble of vine. He had no finesse, no direction, just pushed ahead by the urgent sense to flee.

Casey slowed to a trot. It was absurd to think he could collar the kid from behind, not with the head start, and he had to face facts. Chuck had youth and a pair of beanpole legs on his side, and in a fair foot race, would probably beat him.

Heh. Nothing about age and cunning was fair. Casey halted, his hand slipping over the worn leather of his holster, and he systematically pulled out the Colt. Chuck’s back, the tan jacket, was a target as big as the side of a barn. It’d be too easy.

And he’d never do it.

Lifting the revolver, Casey fired a shot in the sky.

He would bet a silver dollar what would happen next. Greenhorns always did the same. Sure enough, city boy sprawled to the ground, hands over his head in an automatic, protective gesture. As the shot echoed, hollow, along the ridge, Casey heard only the kid’s panting breaths, heavy with confusion and fear.

“Oh my God,” Chuck breathed into the dirt, hands traveling down his sides to take an inventory before realizing he was unharmed. Lifting his disheveled head, he hesitated for just a heartbeat, wondering if another shot was coming. When his head stayed firmly attached to his neck, he surged to his feet, ready to run –

And that brief flash of indecision and fright was the blunder Casey was counting on.

Jesus, kid. So much to learn.

After the shot in the air, Casey had exploded after him, filling the gap while the kid was on the ground. He tensed and leapt, his arms wrapping on contact and getting a strong hold around the kid’s middle. Down they came in a raveled heap of gangling limbs flattened along his thighs, his chest.

For a wiry city boy, the kid had some fight in him. Too bad for the boy, but so did Casey. Using the forty pounds of bulk he had on him, he tightened and beared down until he heard something that sounded like a yelp. Then he flipped him over on his back, and looked down into a pair of wild eyes. “You ever listen, boyo?”

“Go to hell.” The kid made a fist, quickly decided he wasn’t sure what to do with it, and had the audacity to try and shove him off with his elbows. Why didn’t he just lay on the ground and accept he had been bested in an unfair fight? Casey responded with a bored look on his face. Yeah, it would rile the kid. Then he answered by immobilizing his legs, thrusting one of his own between them, holding him with the hard pressure of his thigh, right in a man’s weakest point.

“Do you mind telling me,” he said between his teeth, “where the fuck you think you’re going this time?”

“Get off me! I can’t breathe.”

Casey leaned down over him, giving the kid a good look at why he should stop struggling. “Not an answer, sunshine. Why do you think you can run away?”

“I … ow! No.”

A knee came up, hard. Came awfully damn close to a place Casey would rather it not. Meaning it was time to school the kid. He needed to let him know that wasn’t gonna happen again, and Casey did that by clamping down on his neck, drawing his fingers in, and using the hold to pin him to the earth. With the kid flat on his back, his slender frame became as tense as a coiled spring.

“Put your knee there again, pancake, and I’ll –”

“Ah. Please don’t …. Okay, you made your point, which you’re doing quite well,” Chuck blurted, letting his knee relax. His breath came quick. “I wasn’t running away – not in the sense of well, running – I was only … I needed to get away from you!”

“Which happens to be the very definition of running.” He held his throat, squeezing it deliberately, making it clear he’d had enough of this shit. Then taking a hard look at Chuck’s face, Casey moved his hands to circle his wrists, holding them to the ground over the kid’s head. “Again, I’m going to ask you … patiently, why the fuck are –”

“I … can’t.” As he held him in the restraint, adjusting his thighs, Casey felt a quiver run through the kid, under his hands. He clenched further, just to feel it again. Chuck drew in a breath, tilted his head up, eyeing their hands locked together on the ground. “Can’t you just … go? Please.”

Instead, Casey tightened his fists over his hands, feeling the heat of the man beneath him, and his own hand trembled. Sometimes there was no explaining when God and nature took over, because that’s when he felt the first of the rain drops hitting the back of his coat, trickling past his shoulder. Seemed soothing. The clouds over them opened up, and seeing that the kid was facing the sky, heavy drops splattered on his cheeks, forehead, down his neck where Casey’s hand had held him. The flesh still red from his fingertips.

Beads of water gathered on his eyelashes, and Chuck closed his eyes. His lips parted, licking the droplets from his mouth, a reflex of nerves more than anything. Without those dark eyes watching him, Casey studied his face, the splattered water. It would be easy then to touch, to do it for him, just to increase the pressure and move forward until their mouths met, taste the water. Quell his thirst.

Casey didn’t twitch a muscle. He was only holding him so he wouldn’t get away. That was all.

“Really, kid? You think by askin’ like that, I’m just gonna go?” Casey chuckled, his hands clenching, fingers tracing the curve of his wrist, making him aware of every shift, the press of his thighs now on either side of Chuck, holding him under his body. Thick drops cooled the back of his neck. “We’ve been down this road. And if this has to do with your little secret from last night, well –”

Everything in him straining, the kid tried to buck him off by raising his back. “That’s not it. Get the hell off me, will you? It’s starting to pour – and I told you –”

“Told me what?” When he didn’t answer, Casey scooped both of his wrists under one hand, and slid the other hand down, curling it in his shirt to steady him, make him look him in the eyes.

“Get up, you big jerk.” Chuck bucked up with his stomach again, attempting to dislodge him, as if that would do any good. “I know you can kick my ass, okay? Do you have to make a spectacle?”

“Me? I’m making a spectacle, eh?” Casey moved his hand lower, surprised to feel bare skin under his palm. Shit. With all of his struggling, he had rucked up his shirt, and if Casey looked down, he would get a fleeting look of his lower belly over his jeans. “Listen, princess, I wasn’t the one who took off like a Goddamn –”

“Because I shouldn’t, that’s why,” Chuck said, still gasping. “What happened right there? This is the not the time I should be – in fact, this scenario would go down in history as the most colossal mistake in – you want to hurt me! I can’t like y –”

“If your knee gets even close to that vicinity one more time – what?”

“Shit, shit, shit.” The tugging under Casey’s palm was a dead giveaway. It told him that if there was a time city boy wanted to slap a hand over his mouth, this would be it. While he squirmed, the kid angled his head to the side to look anywhere but up. “Why are you doing this? Get. Off. Me.”

Why. Casey drew back, examining the kid’s profile, the stubborn set to his jaw. Really looking at him. It wasn’t a face he’d forget, either. With rain trickling down the angle of his cheek bone and nose, his hair plastered to his head, Casey noticed again since the first night, the kid wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes. Liked the feeling of this man under him, and for an ungodly reason, the lean body put a tightening in his gut. His eyes fell to the water drops resting on his lips, his mouth looking tender, wet ….

“You’re wrong, farm boy,” Casey said, repressing a tremor – from the damn rain, crawling inside his collar, down this back. “Not gonna hurt you … if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Chuck blinked against the falling drops and peered up at him. That look was still in his eyes, heat and turmoil, his susceptibility in the wide open, thanks to the slip. Liked him? With any other man, Casey would’ve laughed at the words belonging in a school yard. But the simple, stupid admission set a hard pull in his chest, so alarmingly intense and needful, he had to get up. Now.

Or sometime soon.

Damn.

“Céard a dhéanfas mé leat,”Casey muttered, lowering his chin to look away from those brown eyes.

“What … I don’t know what that means.” The tautness in Chuck’s body, still crushed to his, diminished a bit. “Can we get up? Because I think you broke something. There’s something hard sticking in my –”

“It means shut up.”

“That’s all you can say?” Chuck tugged at his wrists, and wrinkled his forehead when Casey held on. “Fine. The last time I checked, when you tackle someone from behind – thank you very much for that, by the way – suck the air out them, and get them soaking wet, you say –”

“Get up.” Casey was not in the mood to listen to a litany of his offenses. For one, he didn’t give a shit. Two, they were both soaking wet. He rose, brushing off his coat, and before the kid could carry-on, he pulled him to his feet.

“Where are we going?”

“If you’re done now, puppy, I’d like to find somewhere we can dry off.”

-x-

“Did you hear me?” Casey growled, taking the kid’s arm above the elbow. “I said get in there!”

“No. Just … no. Not happening.” Latching on to an outcropping at the side of the cave, Chuck dug his heels in and barely held on. “There’s got to be something else.”

Casey expected a tussle, but this was worse than he imagined. “Well, why don’t I just wander down the ridge in a gully washer and see if I can find a place that suits your dandy tastes more than this one, eh?”

“You know, you could tamp down on the sarcasm.”

“And you know what?” Casey let go of Vic and Jackson’s reins and put both hands in the center of Chuck’s back. “I’m telling you to get in there.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say there’s an unspoken or else that you’re implying.” The kid tightened his grip on the rock’s rim, trying to find a strong hold to stop what he should damn well know was inevitable. “And did you happen to forget what you just said out there? That there would be an absence of bodily harm? Well, I think you’re –”

“I never said it.” Rain soaking every inch of his coat, Casey gave the kid a shove. “Now move it!”

“It’s a cave!” Chuck twisted stubbornly and tried to pull away. “We don’t know what’s in there. What if it’s a bear?”

“Yeah?” Taking a handful of his jacket, Casey steered the kid in close, his lips nearly brushing Chuck’s ear. “See that?” he rumbled, giving the coat a brusque shake. “If you don’t get into the cave, in a few days you’re going to be the strange smell that comes from the cave.”

“Not to quibble,” Chuck said hurriedly, scrunching up his face, “but that’s the epitome of bodily harm.”

Casey squeezed down harder on the cloth coat, his fingers digging into lean flesh. “There are few things you need to know about me kid. Wanna hear one?”

“N-no, not particularly … let go.”

“I have a piss-poor short term memory. So that whole thing about not hurting you? I may forget I said that.” To make his point, he shoved him through the craggy entrance, so roughly that the kid stumbled on a few loose rocks. “Now get your ass in there before we drowned out here!”

Chuck rounded on him, raindrops streaming down his cheeks and neck. “Good point,” he said, giving the larger man a scowl as he peeled off his jacket. Still sputtering, the kid shook his head more forcefully, water droplets spraying every which way. Then he shoved a handful of wet curls from his eyes and glared at Casey. “We wouldn’t want to get any wetter, now, would we?”

“Just keep it over there, will ya?” But he had a point, since the thin coat, a worthless piece of protection in Casey’s estimation, had done nothing to keep the kid dry. “You’re getting me all wet.”

Owing to the fact that his shirt was plastered to his skin, Chuck grabbed a handful and flapped it. “You know, maybe I’d be better off being chased by a bear. I just hope this one doesn’t swear and carry a gun.”

“Shut it,” Casey told him. For now, they were out of the rain, so he dragged a hand over his hair, streaks of water sluicing down his neck, under his shirt. No matter how wet he was, it was nothing compared to the drenching Chuck was contending with. As he turned and gave the kid a good once over, he was reminded of an angry flailing tomcat left out in a summer storm. Water soaked clothing clung to the curve of each raw muscle, pasted to his lean back and arms, and outlining in wet detail each bunch and swell of his movements.

Casey grazed his thumb over the carved stock, brooding. The kid’s hidden assets weren’t quite as hidden anymore. It took no imagination to see his rawboned physique and muscles stretched taut as he smoothed down his dark waves and fidgeted with his collar, standing there shaking. Shivering like an idiot.

Hell, let him just stand there.

City boys shouldn’t be out here anyway. Had no room for them.

Really, none at all.

 

Fuck.

“Take off your shirt,” Casey ordered, holding out his hand.

“What …?” Bafflement rose, and Chuck moved back. He looked over at Casey as if he hadn’t understood, but when the kid managed to string the words back together, his lips tightened. “I don’t think so.”

Casey lifted his chin and took a step forward, eyes sweeping over the obstinate little ass. “And I don’t think you’ll like the way I do it. Hand it over.”

The larger man watched as the kid peered beyond the opening of the cave, where the rain came down in sheets. Then he met Casey’s eyes, and the man noticed his fists clench. Even in the semidarkness, hemmed in and soaking wet, he seemed to be weighing his options – which were exactly none, Casey figured – right before he began to fumble for the buttons.

“You … you must have … a thing for taking my shirts? Because seriously, at this rate, by the time you leave, I won’t have a stitch of clothing left!” Chuck started to further his argument, but his mouth shut with a snap, and he blushed furiously despite trying to be smart with him. “Oh. Wait. I meant –”

“Never mind what you meant. Wring it out and lay it on the rock.” Casey folded his arms over his chest, taking no notice of every inch of ruddy skin. Nope. But when the shirt glided down from his shoulders, Casey was pissed at himself for the disappointment that the kid wore an undershirt. That, at least, appeared to be half-way dry.

“I know what to do.” Chuck cast him a glare as he wrung it between his fists. “I’m not an idiot.”

“Yet you’re wearing the coat that would belong to one, eh, boyo?”

Looking down, Chuck fingered the hem of his undershirt, self-conscious, and drew in a shallow breath. And underneath the black look, Casey caught a flicker of distant hurt.

Wasn’t his fault the kid was a naïve as they came.

Okay, fine. Maybe a line had been crossed with that little barb. But he was just bein’ honest. That’s what he needed to hear.

Casey huffed. He couldn’t bring himself to heap more torment on the little twit. So instead he watched him out of the corner of his eye and kept his mouth shut.

Wearing just his soaked britches and that flimsy undershirt, Chuck moved away from him and sat on the floor of the cave. He kicked off his boots and folded his knees close to his chest, wrapping his forearms over his knee. With his head resting on his kneecap, he seemed to be staring at the floor, and God only knows what’s going through that head. After a minute like that, he began running a hand over his bicep. A pretty shitty way to make his own heat.

Casey narrowed his eyes at him, ignoring the way those crazy-ass curls were already sticking up along his collar. Not paying any mind. He remained resolute, eyes fixated on him.

Little son of bitch. Trying to make him feel guilty over his own stupidity.

Strawberries. Puh.

Well, that wasn’t going to work.

Not a chance in hell, brown eyes, so you can just keep doin’ it.

His arms crossed, Casey sat on a rock and listened to the rain slapping against the boulders at the edge of the cave. It beat listening to the thoughts colliding in his head.

What was he supposed to do? That kid over there wouldn’t want him to touch him. Warm him.

He could, too. If he let him. Slide his hand over his wet skin, there at the curve of his neck. Wonder what that mess of curls would feel like between his fingers. Wet and tangly. He’d move his palm slow and easy over the firm rain-slickened flesh of his back ….

The. Hell.

When he snapped out of his thoughts, the bowed head hadn’t moved.

Minutes passed with just the rain beating down. Casey shifted against the rock poking into his ass cheek. It couldn’t be comfortable for the kid, sitting there hunched on the floor. Not that he should give a lick. And he didn’t.

A little guiltily, Casey pulled his warm coat to his body, continued to listen to the kid’s breathing, even and low.

Eventually, he heard it. The brittle chattering noise had a way of edging into his brain. And even in the fading light, he could see the kid shivering, fighting off a cold teasing hand on his pale neck. His long arms were still closed around his knees, tight enough to keep any body heat within. A tell-tale shudder, dragging down Chuck’s spine, informed Casey it wasn’t working out so well.

There were only a few feet between them, but it could’ve been miles. Casey curled his hands loosely at his sides, feeling the sudden hard need to reach out and touch. His hand wouldn’t be welcome. Despite himself, he licked his bottom lip unconsciously, contemplating the back of the kid’s head. He should disengage. Let him sit there in his pool of wet clothes, soaked socks, which he hasn’t even had the sense to take off.

Watching him shrewdly, all of his confusion and guilt returned in spades. There could be another way to look at it. Being sensible about it. The kid was his charge, wasn’t he? And he had shoved him headlong into this situation. No matter what brown eyes just revealed, while they were entangled in the long grass, every inch of his body wedged firm and wet against him, Chuck was first and foremost a hostage.

And rationally, it was his job, an unspoken duty, to be … a caretaker of sorts.

Didn’t mean it wasn’t his fault. The berries, the tussling, and he could probably find a way to blame him for the rain if he thought about it hard enough. Fiddling with one of the buttons on his coat, he gave a hard stare at Chuck’s shoulders, his arched back. The kid’s hands, running over his soaked jeans, had stilled their clumsy movement, just kind of frozen there.

Doesn’t even know he’s a pain in the ass.

“Hell.” Casey made a frustrated noise and pushed off from the rock he was leaning on, taking a few strides up to him. When his knee lightly nudged Chuck’s ribcage, he shrugged the coat off his back and held it out. “Here,” he ordered. “Take it.”

“Take … what?” The kid’s head popped up, and it figured he was going to make this difficult. Not moving, he only braced himself against his knees and let his eyes drift over it. When the genius put two and two together, he stared at the brown duster as if it would bite his fingers if he made a reach for it. “No thanks. I’m not taking your coat.”

“Something wrong with my coat?” Casey’s voice held an edge slightly more dangerous than he had intended.

“It’s not that,” Chuck replied, setting his chin on his arm, his jaw set with that same obstinance. “I’m a lot tougher than you’ll even know … and I don’t need your damn coat.”

Tough, eh? At first, Casey rolled his eyes, but as he tumbled it around, he had to give the kid some credit. Being shot at, being knocked out. Chased through the woods in the dead of night by a man with a gun. Dragged along the ridge on a hunt. Then he had flashed an easy smile, and Casey had felt something from him in that quiet moment, a stinging need he couldn’t say.

“Won’t take it?” Casey hunkered down to meet his gaze. “Listen, tough stuff, I’m not going to bring up a certain situation that involved a needle and a little blood –”

“And I really appreciate the fact that you omitted it, trust me on that.”

“But if you won’t take it, we’ll just have do that my way, too.”

Chuck looked up hastily, knowing by now that Casey’s way involved brute force. “Whatever you’re thinking, can you please just keep me out –”

“Okay, that’s it. Scoot your ass over.” If he had any ideas of arguing, Casey ended it by closing his fingers over Chuck’s shoulder and lowering himself into the empty space next to him. “We’re gonna share it.”

“Share?” Chuck began, suddenly at a loss. He pushed a hand through his dark hair and sat up, searching Casey’s face for the insult that was sure to come. “Why … would you do that?”

At Chuck’s dazed expression, Casey simply flipped one end of the coat over Chuck’s shoulder. “Because your teeth are chattering and it’s pissing me off.” Adjusting the width of the fabric, the coat ended up draped around the kid’s back and half of Casey’s. “Now shut up.”

“Sheesh. Tetchy, aren’t you.”

“I could still shove a sleeve in your mouth.”

Too cold to fight him, Chuck shook his head and rested his chin on his arm. Next to him, Casey settled his elbow on his knee, his arm making gentle contact along Chuck’s bare bicep. Flush to his body, along his hips, thighs, the coat ebbed warmth, sparking the contact points between them. Minutes slipped by, and he felt the kid relax, sinking back into it, sinking closer into the heat. Gradually, the kid loosed the grip on his knees, made absent small circles with the pad of his thumb against the denim. But it was the fabric of Casey’s jeans, right at the point where their thighs brushed together. It fit somehow, bashful yet ballsy, and it wasn’t … unpleasant. He let him do it.

The brown duster surrounding him, the kid then stretched his leg out alongside Casey’s, tension ebbing, the patter of the rain filling the silence. At length, Casey leaned back, wavered, and then drew a few fingers down the kid’s arm where they touched. “Warm?” he asked in a low voice. “Or are you gonna complain?”

“I’m ….” A dull flush starting creeping up Chuck’s neck, but he covered it with a cough and glimpsed over at him warily. With some hesitation, he drew his hand down to Casey’s leg, letting his stolen touch wander to his knee. “I’m good. Is this … okay?”

Casey was aware of Chuck’s sidelong glance before he looked away quickly. Skittish, though he couldn’t blame him. It felt strange having someone pressed to him, the touch sending a path of gooseflesh over his arms.

Was it okay? For an answer, Casey drew the back of his knuckles along the wet rough fabric of the kid’s thigh.

He said nothing. Nor did he move away.

-x- End Chapter Seven Wings of Grace-x-


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight 

He hardly wanted to yell for help, because he should be able to do this. In fact, he almost had it a few times. But no dice. Thanks to that swindler or con man or whatever he denies he is, Chuck would have to do this without the appropriate tool.

Which was right there on the shelf, if he could only reach it! 

Financier. Hell. There’s stretching the truth, and then there’s that. 

What did Morgan call them when they came into town? When it struck him, Chuck had to smile at the term his friend used for the unsavory traveling showmen and cons. The rather short, bearded shopkeeper in Killborn referred to them as mouldy grubs. Peddling their tonics and knives. Hypnotists or ventriloquists that put on shows for two bits a head. They slipped from town to town, selling wares until they were driven out by the locals. Or worse.

Chuck settled the instrument on his lap, steadying his hand with an attempt to concentrate. His captor was as different from them as a fork to a knife. 

This man was harder. Sharp as that blade of the knife. Miles more dangerous. 

His hands clenched, right when his thoughts turned. What if he found it out there? Then what? Would he take it? Destroy it? Ridicule him?

Somehow, the last thought annoyed him more than the others.

This line of thought wasn’t productive. A couple minutes passed while the kid gave it his best shot, for at least the twelfth time, to thread the tiny wire through the brass pin. It should be easy enough to string it through the minuscule hole, pinch the end, and coil it around the peg. It wasn’t off by much, he figured, but enough to strain the ears with a sour chord all the same. 

He chewed on his lip, and had to grin despite his circumstances when he finally managed to get the end through the tiny pin hole. It was quick work from there to wrap the impossibly thin wire around the peg, tightening it to his best estimation.   
Yes. But there was only one way to tell if it worked, wasn’t there? Even now, he hazily remembered where to place his hands, how to pluck the strings in the proper order to thread music, life, into the instrument. 

Aunt Julia. It was because of her that he could do it. She traveled to visit once a year all the way from Springfield, and had packed one in her trunk. Even let a curious curly-headed boy sit in the parlor and pluck away at the strings. He remembered her vividly; wide skirts, stinky perfume, sneaking him cake in the kitchen before dinner, and she taught him how to make music from that oddly shaped wooden box. 

Chuck looked at the door and frowned. He calculated that he had a few more minutes at least before that giant asshole came through it, making a comment or two and rubbing it in good. Needing to get this over with, the kid cleared his throat and struck a wistful note or two.

Not too bad. What was the song? A man hurting someone, not loving someone enough to stay …. 

The kid dropped his hand, swallowed that immediate pang. He had only been close enough once, really close, to have his heart broken, but at this moment, it helped the words rush in. 

“Okay,” he murmured. “How about this?” Repeating her soft encouragement – top staff, left hand … open strings, bass – Chuck moved his hands and instantly winced at the first few notes, a squeaky discordant strum. “Ouch. Maybe I ….” 

He closed his eyes. Strangely, that was when his fingers seemed to remember. 

I wait, my love, for that moment to come  
When I shall turn my back on your sweet smile  
Leave your shining song on the meadow’s breeze  
On the morrow I must go, far away into the dawn  
Can you think to ever let me go?

Do not dream to – 

“Oh, isn’t that purdy,” he heard from the doorway. “Having fun, sunshine?” 

“Son of a bitch.” Chuck’s head snapped up. He barely caught the dulcimer before it could clatter to the floor. “Do you have to do that? Sneak up on me? Haven’t you done enough?”

“You always this jumpy, kid?” Casey closed the door behind him, shooting him a look before his eyes lowered. “What do you have there, anyway?”

“I’m jumpy?” Turning red, the kid slid the dulcimer between his knees and out of sight. “You’re the one that didn’t knock. This isn’t your house, you know.” 

“Is while I’m here.” Casey winked. “If you’re good, I’ll hand it back to ya when I’m done with it.” Sauntering over to the sofa, the larger man shrugged off his brown duster and gave it a little toss. “What was that sound I heard?”

“Nothing.” A bald lie. In the midst of telling it, Chuck’s hand clamped down on the instrument. “Unless it’s your conscious telling you that you should leave?”

“Don’t have one of those,” he answered blandly. “And I’m fairly certain I heard something.” He tapped some mud off his boot, his gaze taking in the look of innocence, before traveling down to the kid’s hand hiding something under his chair. “Sounded like … singin’.”

“It was … nothing.”

“Mind showing me what you got between your legs?”

“What?” 

Casey stared down at him. 

“Oh. Witty.” Chuck grimaced and turned even redder. 

“Nice cheeks,” Casey commented, holding out his hand.

The kid bristled. The only reason he flushed was that Boston was a little more civilized, but it wasn’t worth making the point to this man. “It’s just … nothing. A job I took.”

“A zither?” Casey nodded, a hard hand landing on Chuck’s shoulder. “Is that what you have there, kid?”

Chuck tipped his head back to really give him a good glare, because otherwise he figured Casey was just bullheaded enough to miss the dirty look. “Dulcimer. That’s what the widow, Mrs. Pearcey, called it.” And his aunt, but that was personal, and he wasn’t getting personal with him.

“Zither.” His reply was with such certainty that Chuck had to wonder. Confused, his brows crinkled and he looked down to his hands. That expression died very quickly when Casey suddenly reached between his legs and grabbed it. 

“Hey! I didn’t say you could – give it back,” Chuck snapped, not amused by the game. When Casey didn’t, the kid made a swipe for it, but he couldn’t get up, which meant the big jerk had no problem lifting it out of his reach.

“Easy, kid. See here? The other’s long … with a nice curve.” Casey ran his fingers along the instrument, raised a brow. “You’ve seen one of those before, haven’t you, boyo?”

Chuck looked away. If there was a bigger smart ass in the valley, he’d like to know who it could be. 

“Fine. Whatever it is, can you give it back. Please,” the kid added, terse. “I have a job to do. When I fix the strings for her and deliver it back in town, she’s giving me cash. No bartering this time. I can go to the store. Get some things that I need … if it’s any of your business.”

“Yeah. Good thinkin’. We’re nearly plumb out of whiskey.”

“You’ll be gone by then.” Chuck held out his hand, waiting. “Well? Are you going to give it to me?”

Something caused a quick wry smile. “Your C note. Too low,” he told him after drawing it out, smile fading. “Gotta tune it. Otherwise, sounds like a hound with a bone stuck in its throat.”

“What … are you talking about?”

“The notes I heard?” Though he seemed to consider holding onto the musical instrument, Casey passed it off to him. “Off key.”

Chuck opened his mouth to protest, but decided just to snatch it while he could. Damn him, though, he could be right about what it was. More boxy in shape, with a cutout along one side that swooped down, like the side of a rolling hill. 

“I appreciate your fine sense of musical acumen,” Chuck said stiffly, getting back to fiddling with the final string. “However, you might be surprised that I’ve been told I’m not completely incompetent when it comes to carrying a tune.” 

Casey plunked his hat on the table and wiped his forehead, eyeing him in a way that made Chuck try to shift in his chair. “Not your voice, princess. That actually sounded … well, decent, I guess. You need to tighten it.” 

“Tighten it. That’s helpful. But let’s try this. Do you think you can take a break from telling me how to fix something that I know how to fix – and take care of this?” Chuck waved towards the floor, grateful Casey hadn’t seen fit to include his hands in that little trick of his. “I still can’t move!”

His captor’s reaction was to lift a shoulder in indifference. “Next time I ask ya to come with me to the barn, help out with Vic and the other sorry horse, not to mention a passel of chickens, maybe you’ll come.”

“You didn’t tell me you were going to tie my foot to the table leg if I didn’t! If I knew, I might’ve joined you!”

That earned him a sarcastic tap on the cheek. “Sorry, brown eyes.” The man walked around him, over to the sink, and filled a metal cup. “I expected a smart boy like you had to figure I couldn’t trust you completely. Not yet, anyway,” he added in a mumble, so low Chuck wasn’t sure he heard it at all.

What the hell did he mean by that? He’d never give him a reason to trust him. Never. He can bring home the spoils of a hunt, offer up his damn warm coat, and smile that lazy smile …. 

Not a chance. Didn’t matter a lick. How could he trust a man who had appeared up on his doorstep with a bullet hole in his shoulder, pointing a gun at him?

“Do you mind?” Chuck wiggled his ankle, still tied to the leg of the table. The quarter-sawn slab of fallen oak weighed as much as the cook stove, he figured, and though he had been considerably proud to take it off the Baudreys in a fair trade, now he felt like an idiot for being attached to it. “I’d like to get up. And I can’t believe you just left me to –”

“Do it again,” Casey said as if Chuck wasn’t in the middle of belly-aching.

“Do what?”

Casey leaned his hip against the stove and took a drink of water, rolling it around on his tongue before he swallowed. A thought had occurred to him, that much was obvious.

“I’m sayin’ do it again. Heard it from the porch. Sing that … the verse you were singing.” He turned to dump the cup in the basin, but Chuck swore he heard, ‘Want to hear it again’.

“I … don’t think I can remember the rest.” 

Casey cocked his head. There was a devilish glint when his eyes dropped down Chuck’s foot. “Think I’ll make some breakfast, then.” 

“Will you first – oh, I get it.” Chuck sat back and folded his arms over his chest. “You’re not going to untie my foot unless I do? It’s a game to you, isn’t it? Because this has got to be ... okay, when I explain all of this to the sheriff in a few days, I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to leave out the part where I was forced to sing for my supper.”

“Breakfast,” Casey corrected, grabbing the fry pan. “Woke up a might cantankerous, too. Eggs okay?”

Chuck wanted to tell him what he could do with his eggs, but his stomach won that match. Yes, the tall financier was a pain in the ass, but … granted, he knew his way around a kitchen. “Okay, fine. I realize that when you settle on something, there’s no changing your mind.” God, since when did he get to know this criminal’s idiosyncrasies? “Let me just make sure I have it tuned.”

While Chuck toyed with one of the interlaced pegs, Casey helped himself to coffee and took a seat at the table. When the kid didn’t look up, he tapped Chuck on the head. “Take it,” he said, tipping his chin towards a second cup and placing it in front of him. “Drink.”

“Thank you.” It was out before he could reprimand himself for thanking a man who had stolen his coffee. And for the whole hostage situation. Yeah, that too. “What kind of a knot is that?” he asked, ignoring those blue eyes watching him work. “It’s impossible to untie. Trust me, I tried.”

“Constrictor hitch,” Casey answered. A glance at Chuck’s face, and his smile turned knowing. 

“Constrictor.” Chuck plucked at a string and flinched, quickly making the adjustment. “Well, aptly named.” 

“Learnt it from a fisherman in New Orleans.” Casey paused, long enough to settle back in the chair and pull off his boots. “Spent some time on a trawl with him. He was a drunken cuss, but he taught me a few tricks.”

“Tricks?” Chuck did not mean to have his head shoot up like that. “Really?”

Casey snorted. His lip curled in a smile and he took another drink. “Not like that, sunshine.” 

“Hm? Oh. I didn’t mean … o-kay … never mind.” But the troublesome wash of heat on the kid’s neck seemed to help keep the smile where it was. 

“You’re taking a long time to fix that.” Casey shrugged. “Must like being tied up?” 

Not willing to fall into that trap – not while he was tied – Chuck went back to tuning a string. “I thought we were talking about New Orleans.”

“No, we’re pretty much done.” He tapped Chuck’s foot, get moving, and the kid was intuitive enough to know that would be the end of the history lesson. 

“If you have any comments, I’d prefer you just hold them to yourself,” Chuck said, clearing his throat. 

And mindful that he was being watched, he closed his eyes, playing it back in his head, remembering. The perfume, the way her cool hands gently steered his fingers … and the ballad echoed, pulling the past in close.

Do not dream to shed a tear for me  
This faithless soul doesn’t deserve  
A heart as pure and innocent as thine  
Blow a kiss up on the wind,   
Whisper a prayer to send me on my way 

As he strummed the last chord, letting it ring, slowly dwindle, he looked up to find Casey had cocked a brow, studying him. The intensity seemed to change the blue in his eyes, striking, even in the pale light of the cabin. 

The kid blinked and looked away. “There. That’s what you heard, I guess.” Huffing, he set the instrument on the table. “Are you satisfied now? Or are you going to shin out on your end of the bargain?”

“I don’t shin out on deals.” Casey rubbed his jaw. “There’s a second verse.”

Chuck raised his eyebrows. “I … only know this one.”

“There’s more.”

The implication of the statement is that he should know. “Okay, I have a suggestion,” Chuck said, making the tilt of his head come off as sarcastic. “Since you seem to know it, why don’t you sing the rest?”

“I’m not singin’.”

Chuck’s eyes widened. “I had to sing! Why don’t you have to?”

“You’re tied to a chair.” Casey leaned over and ruffled his hair, returning the sarcastic gesture tenfold. “I’m not. See how that works, genius? Besides, I’m not singin’ for you. Or anyone for that matter.” 

“So you don’t sing – or welch on a bet?”

Casey took a drink of his coffee, contemplating the challenge. “Point for you, kid,” he murmured, and with no explanation, he slipped a shiny hunting knife out of his belt and flipped it in his fingers. “Hold still.”

“Wait. A knife?” Instantly, Chuck tried to jump up, and nearly tripped on the one foot he could use. “I don’t think we need to go to extremes here. I’m only asking you to untie the –”

“Fuck. I said hold still,” Casey ordered. The look he shot him had to be reserved for the biggest imbecile in the canyon, and at the moment he had pegged Chuck for that honor. “I told you – constrictor knot. There’s no damn way to untie it. You gotta cut it off.”

“Oh God. It’s too tight. You’re going to cut something else down there –”

Casey had gotten down on his haunches, but when he heard that, he lifted his head. The kid could see him biting down on his lip. “Trust me, kid,” he said, putting a hand on Chuck’s knee to keep it from bouncing. “The only thing I’m gonna cut off is the knot. Who knows – the rest might come in handy.” 

“You know how I am about blood!” Chuck looked away, nerves getting jangly. 

Hang on. What did he just say?

Fortunately, Chuck didn’t have time to sort it out, because that’s when he felt a pull, heard a snap, and the binding was gone. 

Casey rose from his knees and dangled the piece of rope in his face. “I could show you that sometime. That right there … might come in handy, too.” 

“No thanks.” Chuck grabbed the rope, only because Casey let him. “Trust me. I would like to jump all over that tempting opportunity.” The cynicism was going to get him in trouble eventually, but seriously, how could he get into more? “However, the thought of you demonstrating anything that involves ropes and knots is, what is the word I’m searching for? Let’s just say slightly terrifying. So I think I’ll pass.” 

“Too bad,” Casey said dryly.

A corner of Casey’s mouth twitched. Chuck wished he knew what he was thinking, but when he tilted his head to interpret his face, instead his attention caught the stupidest distraction imaginable. 

Oh, right there.

The top three buttons of Casey’s shirt – not that he was counting or anything – were undone, the placket flipped back loosely, giving just a glimpse of rounded pectorals, no longer hidden under the rumpled chambray. Not to mention an interesting patch of chest hair that disappeared at the V where the forth button –

Guiltily realizing that he had been staring, Chuck abruptly shifted his gaze to the floor. Even that wasn’t enough. For no logical reason, there was a weird feeling flutterin’ in his belly. Bird wings and leaves whipping in a gust. It had to be the coffee on an empty stomach. Being hungry. 

He covered his sudden jitters by dragging a hand through his hair. Still, it was unsettling.

No, crazy, he berated himself.

“Yer loss.” That grin again. Casey left the piece of rope next to his hand on the table and went back to the stove. “Suppose we’ll be painting the town red again, today, eh? Don’t tell me. Post holes or plantin’?” 

Chuck dropped the bit of rope quickly, swallowed. “I didn’t realize it was my role in this situation to entertain my ‘out-of-town guests’. But yes, I have chores.” He hesitated, adding, “You can help if you’d like.”

It baffled the kid that he didn’t immediately scoff at that. “Choppin’ something down?” 

“Uh, not to disappoint, but nothing quite that … destructive. Besides, I’m not giving you an axe,” Chuck added. His lower leg had fallen asleep, all tingly from lack of blood, and now freed, he jumped up to walk around the table. “Wash day down at the creek. At least for the clothes I still have remaining in my possession, unless you intend on making more bandages out of them?” The kid bared his teeth at him with another little spear of sarcasm. “Take them from me?”

“Depends on you.”

The kid’s eyes narrowed while five expressions, confusion to humiliation, crossed his face. “Are you in or not?”

“Washin’? Women’s work.”

“That’s right.” Yes, it was a dull and backbreaking chore, but the smell of both of them had to be overpowering. “Bring your washboard. Soap if you have it.” 

The argument or scorn must be sitting on the tip of his tongue. Chuck stiffened as he slid the zither into its cloth bag and waited for it.

But in its place, there was a grunt. And what he did was turn his back to the stove to dish out some eggs. The kid couldn’t explain it, but damned if he wasn’t giving that black Irish smirk while he flipped them onto a tin plate. 

“Soap,” the larger man repeated, slanting his head at the kid, his look making Chuck wonder if his messy brown cowlick needed to be pressed down. “Yeah, I got soap.”

-x-

“You know, I’m really capable of starting a fire under the boiler pot,” Chuck said. He was never going to admit to the man that it was easier to face wash day when someone else maintained the blaze. “You don’t have to do that.”

“You’ll screw it up.”

“This doesn’t mean I’m washing your things.” 

“If it’s any consolation, my skivvies don’t need special treatment. Just a little elbow grease’ll be fine.”

“So is that why you conveniently brought your own pack down here to the creek?” Chuck observed, pushing some damp hair from his forehead. Reluctantly, he sat up halfway, leaning on his elbows, his long legs still stretched out on the grass. “And just oh-so-casually tossed it on top of my pile? Did you think I wasn’t going to notice?”

“No, I was pretty sure I was going to make you notice.” The stick Casey used to position a log kicked up a burst of sparks, and he poked at it a few more times before looking up. “You are aware of the peckin’ order while I’m here, aren’t you? Or do you need a reminder, city boy?”

Chuck sat up taller. “You know, first of all, I think I get the pecking order, but thanks for the offer. And second of all, I think I should remind you that I was given an actual name at birth, and it would be nice if you actually thought about using it from time to time.”

“Nice, eh? You’d like that?”

The droll smile told the kid he would most likely never hear his birth name uttered from that man’s lips. Ever. 

“Sorry I brought it up.”

“Not yet, you aren’t,” Casey replied, shifting another log. 

Chuck made a feint for a small stone to toss at him, but decided to hang onto it instead, since the man would just torture him anyway. Put him in a headlock or throw him in the creek … or anything else he’d dream up, just to occupy himself. 

Heaving a sigh, Chuck sat back and threaded the blades of grass through his fingers, surveying the man out of the corner of his eye. Funny, but when he grinned like that a minute ago, it was almost full blown on one side and part way up on the other, eyes crinkling, like it could grow into a real smile someday. If he wanted it to. Even more puzzling, that slow lazy grin smoothed out all that hardness and rough edges, and made him … handsomer, somehow. 

Not that he was handsome, because, well, Ellie always taught him that handsome was on the inside, and not measured by the outside. Nope …. It had nothing to do with the way a rounded bicep looked when it curled, or the motion of arms making muscles bunch up like stones under skin … or the width of his back in a stretch ….

A back, he meant. Not his in particular. 

Shit. What the hell had happened there? One moment he was ready to toss a stone at him, and the next he was noticing things he shouldn’t. Things that would get him in more trouble. He shouldn’t be wondering, or having feelings swirling in his stomach, taking up space in his lower belly. 

Just balled up apprehension. That was it. 

As Chuck blinked away his thoughts, he turned to watch Casey stir the fire. Comfortable in his skin, the man had easy movements, someone in complete control of his body, every grip and turn taut yet smooth. 

Okay, now that word was tumbling in his head again. Handsome. 

Suddenly uncomfortable, the kid reclined back to focus on the water, the creek’s undulating current carrying a few leaves and twigs along the break. When that didn’t work, he shifted, lying flat on his back in the sun, and rested a forearm over his eyes. Feeling the warmth on his skin, it was enough to succumb to a doze, but oddly it left Chuck like a tightly strung wire, thanks to the man working next to him. 

Handsome?

On second thought, he should rinse these thoughts out of his head. Listen to the wind and the bubbling of the creek. 

“Just … wake me up when you have it ready, mm?” Chuck managed sleepily, not bothering to open his eyes. “Then I’ll take my turn.”

 

The toe of a boot, lightly digging into his ribcage, had to be the peskiest object in the universe. Someone was trying to wake him, and he had barely slept. Gradually, Chuck cracked open an eye, irritated to see Casey looming over him. The damn boot dug in again.

“Ow.” His eyes sprung open, and he hastily wiped his mouth, noticing Casey was regarding him with an amused expression. “Easy with the boot, okay?”

“Have a good nap, boyo?”

“Nap?” Chuck asked, forcing himself to sit up. “I didn’t even get to –”

“Been out like a light for nearly an hour.” Squatting next to him, Casey dropped the stick he had used to stir the logs. “Fair share of snoring, too,” he said, and passed a thumb over the kid’s temple. 

The cool touch was confusing, and maybe Casey intended it that way. Something else to keep him thrown off balance. But Chuck’s reflexes took hold, even if it was too late, and he jumped at the feel of his hand there. He still wasn’t sure what had gotten into him. “I couldn’t have –” Snored? Let his guard down so completely around him?

“Up. You got your sleep, brown eyes. The tub’s ready. Your turn to get to work.”

Chuck rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t argue with either point. If the position of the sunlight filtering through the dappled leaves overhead was any indication, he had slept for a while. Another fair point was that Casey had done all the work so far – lighting the fire, filling the tub with buckets of creek water, feeding the flames until the water simmered. 

“You can refrain from any cracks that this is the women’s part of the job,” Chuck grumbled, climbing to his feet. 

Casey made one of those perplexing noises in his throat. 

“And I suppose there’s a reason you put your stuff on top?” the kid went on, ignoring him.

“Yeah. I’ve seen your spindly arms, eh?” Casey gave him that lingering once over. “They’ll be limsy as a twig by the time you get halfway done.” Then he stretched to the side, working out the kinks, before tossing down the stick he had used to stir the fire. “This way I know at least my stuff will be clean.”

“How generous of you. Really.” Chuck turned his attention to the washboard, the hated wooden frame mounted with a series of ridges, leaning into the tub. God, he did loathe everything about having to use it, and it did make his arms feel like water when he was done … not that he’d tell him that. “Fine. I’ll soak yours first.”

“Soap’s in my pack,” Casey said.

“Are you … you’re telling me you carry soap? With you? When you’re out doing ….” Chuck filled it in by holding out his pointer finger and using his thumb as the trigger. “You know. This.” 

When he stopped motioning with his finger, he saw Casey regarding him coolly. “What’re you saying there, princess? Accusing me of something?”

“Um.” Chuck forced a smile, knowing this was the time to backpedal. “That I’m … going to go look for the soap. Oh, and thanks. I’m down to … the end of mine anyway.” 

He reached for the pack and began digging through it. All in all, Chuck wasn’t sure what was more amazing. That the scruffy large man owned a bar of soap, or that he was letting the kid paw through his bag. A knife. A blanket. Some rope and bits of leather. The perplexing broken pocket watch with his surname carved on the case, something he seemed to hold dearly. And soap. There it was. Chuck fished it out and set down the pack. He smelled … pears. Pear soap. 

How could this get more bewildering?

Behind him, something rustled. 

Chuck turned, slowly, holding the soap, and stared at the larger man.

Casey’s hands were midway down, making quick work of the buttons of his chambray striped shirt. “Shave some off and toss it in the tub.”

“What … do you think you’re doing?”

“Everything’s goin’ in.” Casey didn’t bother to warn him before he tossed his shirt at the kid. “Here. Take it."

“Not – not everything,” Chuck stammered, miraculously able to catch hold of the sleeve. He winced when a tell-tale snap of a twig under his foot made it obvious that he had then backed up a step. “I’m … not going to … and in fact, I don’t think you should –”

The words ended when a rather malodorous undershirt landed on his head. 

“Don’t walk away, yet, pancake.” His fingers were already slipping out the buttons on the front of his jeans. “Got something else for ya.”

“Something – oh no.” Chuck’s eyes swept over him before he ducked his head and spun around. “Just … just throw them, okay! Geez, can you have a little … modesty? It’s broad daylight!”

“Look around, kid. Who’s gonna see me, exactly?” 

“Who? Me!”

There was a chuckle and more rustling of clothes behind his back. “If it bothers ya, cupcake, I promise not to look when you get undressed.”

“Undressed?” Chuck felt his spine straighten, and thank God that crazy man couldn’t see his face. Not with his mouth hung open like a fool. “If you think that I’m going to … no, okay? Just … no. I have a perfectly good tub in the wood crib. I’m not … getting undressed for you.” Great. Why did he feel compelled to tack on those last two words? 

“Suit yourself, brown eyes. But while you’re tending to my shirts and britches, I’m going to take a little dip in the creek.” Behind him, Casey made a dramatic sniff of the air. “Get the smell off – at least one of us. Here. Take these.”

“Fine. Just give – holy –” Had he given it any thought, he might’ve stopped himself before he instinctively half-turned, holding out his hand. The same hand that he immediately brought up to slap over his eyes, a second too late. “Naked! So very very naked!”

“What.” Another chuckle, this one bordering on lewd. “You did notice I’ve been handing you my clothes?” 

“And I would appreciate it, but can you please stop doing that?” Chuck complained. But covering his eyes did nothing to block the image already imprinted in his mind. Standing there tall, thoughtlessly exposing a country mile of pale, muscled flesh, a sprinkling of chest hair that trailed down, arrowing to – oh God. “Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“Miss out on all of fun of watching your cheeks get lit? Heh.”

“This is fun?” Not moving his hand, Chuck pivoted around and pointed with the other in the vicinity of the creek. “Get in the water!” 

It irked him plenty, that deep rumble of a laugh. The kid waited with his back turned, now with his arms folded over his chest, until he heard him step into the creek, the quiet splash of water. This early in the season, the surge of cold could be fierce until the body got used to it, and Chuck heard the man suck in a breath between his teeth. “Shit. That’ll make a man of you. Damn cold.” 

Served him right for even suggesting Chuck should join him. The big oaf could use a cooling off anyway. “I don’t need to freeze to death to prove myself.” Chuck scowled, looking down at his boots. “Having fun in there?”

“Could be better,” Casey said casually after a moment. “You can turn around, kid. I promise you won’t see anything that’ll make you get jittery.” 

Chuck’s brows drew down. It was then that he noticed he had uncrossed his arms, and was pushing a hand through his dark curls. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he answered hotly, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“Then why don’t you turn around?”

Wary, Chuck shot a look over his shoulder to see that the man was already in to his hips. Almost. Well, truthfully, it was barely deep enough to cover his lower half, but the kid figured he just wouldn’t look that closely, that’s all. 

“You left my undershorts on the grass, kid, or didn’t you notice?” Casey said, and as he spoke, he splashed water over his chest, sending it trickling down his lower belly. “Get them in there with the rest of it.”

“Yes, sir. Let me get right on it.” Chuck gave him a mock half-hearted salute and tossed them in the heated tub along with the rest of Casey’s things. Already tangled and floating were a few shirts and another pair of his broken-in denims. Luckily, the kid managed to fit a few of his own items in the hot bath, but he figured the rest would have to wait until the first tubful was ready to dry. 

Now all he needed was something to grate flakes off the bar of soap Casey had offered up. Bowed down, he started searching the ground for a stick, but a rock sailed near his head, landing by his feet. 

“Use that,” Casey said, barely looking up.

“For?”

“The soap. That’s what you were looking for?”

Chuck squinted at him, but picked up the rock. When he had a few shavings, he mixed them into the hot water and settled back on the ground.

It was uncomfortable, yet not as weird as he expected this situation to be. No, it was almost a relief to be able to sit on the grass in the sun and watch … scenery and things. 

Like a naked man in his creek. 

Jesus, really?

Chuck’s eyes skimmed vaguely towards the water, and he had to berate himself. He really should find something else to do. What kind of a man did that make him, just staring like that?

“Getting your work done?” 

How did he do that? He didn’t even look up! “Oh. I – I – no, not yet.”

“Waiting for something?” Casey asked, cupping his hand to sweep water over his neck. 

“Not … not that you care, but it’s easier if you let the hot water and soap do most of the work first,” Chuck said hurriedly, defending his idleness. “Usually, while I’m waiting, I … find something else to do.”

The man muttered something under his breath and laughed. “Like what?”

“Well.” Trying not to meet his eyes, Chuck leaned back on his elbows and crossed his ankles. “Sometimes I grab a fishing line and try to catch supper.”

“So where is it?” Casey wondered, washing his throat, the line of bone to his shoulders. 

“I … well.” Chuck wet his lips, really hating his voice right now, “Sometimes I just sit here in the grass and … lay in the sun. Relax for once. Maybe watch the meadow over there.” He pointed by tipping his head to the side. “Or the way the sun crosses the top of the ridge. The way the shadows change. Don’t you ever take the time to notice?”

Casey shrugged, and his grin slanted into a leer. “Yeah. I notice things.”

He couldn’t believe it was that easy for the man to get a blush out of him, but he’d never been forced to watch a man bathe before. Forced, that’s right. The fact that he was still a hostage of sorts seemed to justify it all.

Chuck reached up and pushed a few dark tendrils out of his eyes. He was sitting like a stone, but no matter how hard he tried, his attention kept wandering to the view in the creek. Only out of curiosity.

Moving out towards the middle of the cove, Casey went under and came back up, water running off his shoulders and down his back. When he glanced over at the kid, he pushed his hands through his wet hair, getting it out of his face. “Brisk, but it does the job. Sure you don’t want to get in?”

“Quite.” The kid’s attitude took on a mask of indifference, and he busied himself by tossing small pebbles into the current.

Bored with that after a minute or two, he leaned back, watching the gleam of the sun skipping over the surface … and on a pair of broad shoulders, a wide chest. When the man bent his thick upper arms to trail water over them, one then the other, Chuck’s attention landed on his tensed abs, reminding him of a hard-eyed street fighter he had seen in town … except that man had clothes on, and not a lightly furred chest and rounded ass cheeks …. 

Okay. This was not good. In fact, horrible. The view of the mountains had never put that weird stuttering in his chest.

“You watching the pot?” Casey asked, rubbing his stubble.

Chuck jolted. “Don’t worry. I’m sure your undershorts will pass muster.”

For some inexplicable reason, the kid’s eyes settled on the place where the water swirled around his hips, low, just above the slope of his ass. Tanned skin gave way to pale flesh there, elusively blurred by the clear water, but visible if he really looked. 

Which he did not. Even when Casey turned to the side.

Oh. 

He wasn’t certain what he caught a glimpse of, but maybe large hands and feet could only mean one thing.

Looking down at his own hands before he could stop himself, Chuck reddened and shifted his attention up to the fair weather clouds. He blamed the sun for the heat seeping through his middle, traveling outward from his warm neck to his toes. Might’ve had something to do with the view, now busy scrubbing his hand over his chest, water glistening, matting down his chest hair ….

Maybe he should get up. Wiping the sweat from his brow, the kid slipped out the top button on his shirt and climbed to his feet. Their clothing had been sitting in the tub of hot water and soap long enough, and the avoidance tactic could only work for so long. Now came the part he hated. Taking the plunger he had fashioned from two timbers, he used the wide end to lift out the soaked clothes. 

“You should be doing this part,” he pointed out, peeved. Damn muscle man over there, splashing around, washing himself. 

“Put your weight into it, kid,” Casey answered, reaching behind his back to scrub at a place Chuck couldn’t quite see. 

The kid looked away quickly, getting on his knees in the grass, avoiding the narrow gaze he was getting. He decided to ignore him by giving the clothes a healthy squeeze and wringing them against the washboard, watching the water turn grey. 

“What would I do without your advice?” Chuck asked under his breath. But holy crap. His own clothes he was wearing were just as unspeakably dirty. Still, there was no possible scenario where he would strip in front of him. 

When his hands were worn out, the kid carefully laid out the shirts and pants on the grass to dry in the sunlight, and dumped the rest of the dirty clothes in the tub. He scraped a few more curls of the pear soap in with it, stirring the garments around with the plunger. The mundane task kept him busy for a few minutes. 

And it helped block out the annoying swish and splashing a dozen paces away. 

Glancing up, Chuck caught the sight of the man coming closer to shore. He frowned. “So if you’re coming out to help me, can you warn me at least?”

Casey grunted, which Chuck translated in the region of, yeah, in your dreams, bucko. He also stayed in the water, however, safely up to his lower hips. 

Eying the tangle of clothes, the kid decided the pile needed a little longer to stew now that they were soaked. He let himself stretch, reclined against the tree and shoved his hands in his pockets.

Bit by bit, his attention roamed to the creek. 

Casey had turned his back to him, giving him a view of his bulging upper torso. Back muscles? He didn’t even know was possible until right this minute. More pale flesh, a few scars and scrapes along his ribcage, one that disappeared in a tiny jagged path under the water. 

He really shouldn’t be dissecting him, his body, like this. Just as he started to look away, Chuck’s eyes landed on the bullet hole, which seemed to be healing decently. Right there, grazing the meat of his upper shoulder. What would that feel like? Through firm bands of tissue … running his hands down his arms. 

Wait. Not that. Not the last part.

“Catching an eyeful, pancake, or do you want me to step out of the water like this?” 

Chuck blinked. Blinked again and straightened. “I … was just ….” It really was possible to die of embarrassment, he thought, brain scrambling for diversion. “Why … why do you call me that, anyway? Pancake? What does even mean?”

Casey lifted a shoulder, cupped a handful of water and dragged it up his arm. “Tall sweet stack, of course,” he said. 

“I … I think I should be offended.” 

“And I think you should hand me the bar of soap if you’re done with it.”

“Oh, well, now that I’m done washing your things, let me hop right to it.” Chuck pushed off from the tree and reached into Casey’s pack where he had returned the bar. “Here it comes,” he warned him, getting ready to toss it underhand. “Can you catch?”

Casey shot him an exasperated look, keeping his hands at his sides. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Well, I –” Chuck began, not knowing what he did this time to screw up. “You said you wanted the soap.”

“I said hand it to me. Jesus, kid.” He stopped to roll his eyes. “You’re going to miss the mark, and the soap will be lost in the current. Bring it here.”

“Wow. Patience isn’t your thing,” he mumbled, careful to keep it quiet. Bending over, he pulled off one boot, hopped one-legged towards the bank, and managed to remove the other one. When his toes touched the water, he stretched and held it out. “Here.”

“Still can’t reach it, so you better close your eyes, ‘cause you’re gonna get a bird’s eye view of my –”

“Oh, God! Really, are you going to – God!” Chuck’s head spun to the side and he squeezed his eyes closed. Too late. But yep, now it was confirmed. You could tell a man from his boot size. “Why … did you have to –”

“Tried to warn ya.” 

Chuck took another step into the cold water and blindly waved the soap. “I can’t see … so just take it, will you?!”

“Thanks, kid,” Casey said. The water around his legs swished as he came closer. “I think I will.”

And a strong hand came out and clamped around his wrist. 

“What’re you –?” Chuck went rigid and tried to twist his arm free. Immediately, he felt Casey’s hold compensating. The restraint was unshakable, and they both knew it. “Dammit! Let go. I brought you the –” 

“Yeah, thanks for that.” Casey chuckled. The hand flexed, digging in, and the kid felt the water creeping up to his knees, being pulled in further. “But listen, cupcake. Aren’t we sharing the same bed?”

“You know we are! I was willing to take the floor!” When the cold hit his crotch, he sucked in a gulp of air, feeling his balls draw up tight. An odd scorch that made no sense came only through the feel of Casey’s hand gripping so roughly. “Cold! I said let go!”

Very rarely to never did he listen. So of course, he didn’t let go. Casey instead closed a hand around his hip, steadying him against the tiny pebbles burrowing into his feet and the cold that sapped his breath. “And since I let you join me there,–”

“Let?” Chuck tried to shove back until the hold tightened to just the edge of real pain. Almost there, but not quite. “Let has nothing to do with it.” 

“I thought you’d have enough common courtesy to wash the stink off your skin.” Casey sniffed the air. “Or those clothes you’re wearin’.” His hand came up to his face, fingers grazing his jaw for no damn reason before turning him to pay the hell attention. “Stop your struggling. You fight like a damn wom – shit.”

Barefoot or not, the kick landed on the meat of Casey’s upper thigh, and the kid was momentarily proud of showing him he didn’t fight like a woman.

That spurt of arrogance lasted until he felt the brush of something on his legs. Practically every sound, the gurgling water, the chatter of birds overhead, ended as Casey brought him close enough to shoot an arm around his neck and sweep Chuck’s legs out from under him, taking them both under the moving current.

Water engulfed him. Drowning him. Horrified, frantic, he realized that had to be his intention. Not shooting him out of a tree, or a hunting accident in the woods. The arms wrapped around his chest like bands of rope, squeezing the air from his lungs – 

Casey hung on even as they surfaced. Air and streaks of sunlight slapped him into awareness. Saying you’re not dead yet. 

Behind him, Casey leaned in close, lips a hairsbreadth away. The man’s cock was a bar of steel pressing against his ass. “What the fuck,” he growled, “was that all about?”

“You were trying to kill me!” Chuck attempted to throw an elbow, but the hard rope of arms tightened. 

“I’m not trying to kill you, brown eyes.” When the kid’s lean body relaxed, unbunching the tension, Casey dragged his hands down Chuck’s smooth chest, making him suck in a gasp. Bastard. Touching him like that. Touching his hard flat nipples, across his stomach. Then Casey curled his fingers around his wrist again, manacling him. Quiet strength rippled under his hand. “Behave for me,” he said, words a whorl on his skin. “Stop fightin’ it.”

“If y-you’re not trying to kill me, what are you doing?”

Casey took a moment to just stare at him as Chuck strained, moved backwards, trying to put more water between them. And as Chuck pulled, the firm grip tightened. Then without a word, Casey raised his other hand towards Chuck’s cheek, moving into him, eyes fixed on his face. 

Chuck tensed. He couldn’t help the reflexive balk and duck, though right now he was too startled by the frigid water to acknowledge Casey’s hand was loose, not a fist. As if he dared to thread his fingers in the slick wet hair, his thumb follow along the line of his cheek bone ….

And for a man who was as unfazed as a steep hill, something that looked like surprise … and maybe hurt crossed his face as he watched Chuck jerk away. 

“Christ, you are a piece of work,” he muttered at last, letting his hand fall into the water. “Just give me your damn shirt.”

“My … what?”

“Your shirt,” he repeated, pulling him in nearer, water surging around his middle. “Just hand it over, eh?”

Still with a small struggle, Chuck stumbled against a rock under his foot. Automatically, he swung out to latch onto the man’s hip, clinging, digging in, until he could sense his feet were in control. That was the extent of his control, he knew, because Casey would take the shirt if he didn’t just give it to him. “Okay … I …. You have to let go. I can’t unbutton a it with one hand!” 

“Oh, hell.” More muttering, and then Casey showed him that he could damn well unbutton a shirt with one hand if the kid had no dexterity. “Hold still.”

“What are you doing?”

“For Chrissakes, keep your hands away – and get your arms down to your sides.” Casey swatted his fingers and made quick work of the row of buttons, and began to slide the shirt off his back. “There, see? One handed, kid.”

“Hey! Watch it. You’re – this isn’t exactly …oh, God,” Chuck groaned, making one last attempt. He had always considered his long reach one of his greatest assets, so the kid dove for it, but that was futile. Pitted against him, he came up empty handed. 

“Gotta be quicker,” Casey told him. He had finally let go of his wrist, but it was only to toss the shirt. Balled up, it made a perfect arc and landed in the tub. 

“Quicker?” The kid hunched his shoulders, as if that would help cover his self-consciousness. “Or how about this. You could stop taking my clothes?” 

Casey grunted. 

Confusion wrinkled Chuck’s brow at that particular rendition. 

Don’t count on it?

What the hell?

“Feel warmer yet, boyo?” Casey asked. His gaze shifted down to the kid’s bare chest, lips twitching in a smile. “You get used to it, don’t ya?”

Chuck shook his head, partly an answer that he could go fuck himself, and partly to unplaster the curls on his head. “Thanks for your concern, John. But you know something? You really need to find a way to entertain yourself that doesn’t include torturing me. Now if you don’t mind, can you kindly get the hell out of my way so I can get back to work?”

Those blue eyes were close. His lips, his angled jawline, long hard body. Close enough to touch. Watching him intently, Casey took his arm again. “Stubborn little bastard, aren’t you. But I didn’t say you were done.” 

“So the plan really was to drown me?” It wasn’t. Chuck knew that now, but he couldn’t help saying it. Was that what this was to the man, a game? Keeping him here, knowing he couldn’t run away from him? 

“You don’t have to be afraid of me.” Casey said it quietly, and his hand had clenched, hauling him up hard against his hips. “Told ya that, didn’t I?” 

Afraid? Hell yes, he was afraid, but that secret was his and his alone.

Chuck lifted his head, his chin jutting out, and stubbornly folded his one free arm over his bare chest. Cool water, now forgotten, still trickled over his skin, down the slope of his narrow hips, the slickened path to his lower belly, ending where his thighs met the creek. He swallowed. “Then what do you want?” 

“Your pants, brown eyes,” Casey replied, even as he slid his hand along Chuck’s arm to his elbow. “Let’s have ‘em.”

-x- End Wings of Grace Chapter Eight–x-


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

“My … pants?” Chuck looked down, paled, and pulled back on the strong fingers clenching his elbow. He had to respect a man for his directness, but if he had use of that arm, he’d be shoving him the hell away right now. 

Well, okay. If Casey wasn’t twice his size and stronger by miles, he would, but he had to face facts. Not only could the man could crush him like a water bug between two fingers if he was suddenly hit with the inclination, he could do it without straining even one of those stupid muscles. 

The kid pushed the wet curls off his forehead, making them a rumpled mess. It was foolish to think he could twist out of his grasp – and humbling to even try – so he had to settle for just blinking the water out of his eyes, staring at him. “You … you want my –”

“Pants,” Casey repeated, slowing down as if talking to an idiot. “Hand ‘em over. They’re going into the pot with the rest of it.”

By now, Chuck’s eyebrows had shot to his hairline. “But I’m not –” 

“You heard me.” Casey nodded, and he wasn’t acting like this was a joke, or that he was getting ready to let go. Like he was really going to do this, but that couldn’t be real. “What I said earlier – everything’s going in. That means your britches, kid.”

“I feel I should point out the obvious,” Chuck stammered, and curling his fingers into his waistband, low on his hips, he hung on in case the man was going to get any crazy ideas. “You can tell that they’re already being washed right now,” and he threw out a panicked smile. 

“You know what I mean.” A snap of his fingers, waiting. 

“But … I … don’t think –” Chuck gulped and backed away. “I’m – ouch –” He jerked, cringing at a jab of something sharp under his heel. “Ow, ow, ow.”

Just as sudden, the kid’s attention was drawn to the hand on his arm, pulling him closer, steadying him. Casey didn’t move away, his fingers pressing in, and it wasn’t … uncomfortable. More like a sturdy anchor for him to latch onto. At the touch, Chuck wasn’t sure of what he felt, but it might have been Casey’s thumb swiping gently over his inner wrist. From any other hand, it would be a caress. From him, it was confusing and couldn’t be.

“Off,” Casey told him, flippant, like it was the most normal request in the world. “Let’s go. Don’t have time for theatrics and stammerin’.”

“And I have to say one more time, that –” 

“Shut up.” Casey’s voice got throaty, not the way he usually barked out the orders. Maybe he meant to calm his shaky apprehension, but why? “Stand still.” 

He wasn’t sure about this …. Not daring to look at him, Chuck found a solid footing, his heel aligned to the side of his, and their hip bones brushed together. “Why are you … ah! Cold, cold ….”

They were back in deeper again, the water mid-chest where the strong current wrapped about them. Casey’s wide arm went around his middle, slippery skin and strength holding him there. Tight enough to take his breath, but perhaps that wasn’t the grip. Then Casey leaned in, lips warm to Chuck’s ear, and the kid could feel the smile. 

“Listen, boyo. With you still in the pants, I only have a fifty/fifty chance of making it into the pot. If you hand them to me, the odds go up in my favor, eh?” His hand held him firmly, splayed against his side above his hip. “Can you do that one handed, or do you need me to –” 

“No, no, no ….” Why was he holding him like this? Did he want to make him suffer, humiliate him? But with his arm around his waist, secure … it didn’t feel like humiliation or anguish. Instinctively, Chuck placed a hand on his arm, and he felt smooth layers of muscles under his palm, something not meant to hurt. More of a subtle playful tease. 

That confirmed it. The man is insane. He really is going to do this.

Chuck jolted backwards, flailing an arm, because it seemed like the thing to do. 

“No, you don’t.” Casey slid a hand onto his waistband, exerting some pressure so that Chuck knew he would hold him and keep it there. “Stay for me.”

“I mean – no, I can’t do it one handed, but no I don’t need your help.” 

“Suit yourself.” Before Chuck could pull back again, Casey’s strong hands moved to the small of his back, skimming over wet skin, and the touch loosened. “When you get them off, brown eyes, hand them over and I’ll give them a toss.” The other man’s gaze traveled down his chest, his stomach, then looking away, he thought he heard, “God, you are the most ….” Biting off the rest, Casey just rolled his eyes. “Okay, just do it.” 

Stepping back, the kid took a minute to stare at his stiff profile, contemplating a mutiny, but seriously? The man had every visible advantage – and probably a few hidden ones, too. 

“Fine.” Chuck resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to lose the pants. He turned around, a habit of modesty because he certainly couldn’t be facing towards a man while he took off his pants. Not even the one time it did happen. That memory was a blurry fog and he didn’t recall much, but he would bet his worthless horse it was Bryce who had taken the lead. 

Why was he thinking of that? Now? They’re only bathing, for God sakes. Washing up … no matter how much the man seemed to want to watch him squirm. They were not doing … other things. And he shouldn’t be … wondering or thinking of –

“Still waitin’, pumpkin.”

“Asshole,” Chuck whispered. But with his back to him, he bowed his head, managing to get the buttons undone despite his hands fumbling under the water’s surface to get to them. “And just so you know, I’m giving up the pants, but you are not getting my undershorts,” he announced, dodging a look over his shoulder. “You may not have any dignity when it comes to showing off your, well, all of what God gave you,” – and really, God! Did you have to do that? – “But I wasn’t raised like that.”

“Your loss,” Casey said quietly from behind, and there was a splash, some trickling water down his body. The kid waited for that low chuckle of his to add to his mortification, but he must’ve gone back to washing up. Maybe his chest …. 

Chuck looked back one more time, drawing his eyes there just to make sure, but the larger man paid him no heed. Okay, he was wrong. Washing his shoulder. 

Huh. 

He swallowed, his fingers slipping through his thick hair, and quickly turned. 

Loss. What did he mean by that?

Well, first he had to figure out how to do this. Get his britches off under water without causing a spectacle. 

Shit. 

Tugging on the sodden jeans, Chuck wondered if there really was a graceful way to remove one’s pants while in the water without drowning. But with enough shimmying and kicking, he finally got them past his hips and down his legs. The undershorts stayed put – see, he could do this – and ending the struggle, he scooped the jeans off his feet and held the soaked heavy fabric over his shoulder. 

“Since you were so eager to take them, why don’t you –” Chuck jumped at the feel of something directly behind him. “Oh.”

“Give ‘em here.” A hand swooped in from nowhere, promptly taking the jeans. 

Chuck half-turned towards him, glimpsing at Casey awkwardly, but the water was deep enough here to cover most of his bare body. “What are you? Half muskrat on your mother’s side?” he asked. “I didn’t even hear you come up behind me.”

Casey just stared at him in that completely implacable way he had, and then smirked. And not that he could help it, but Chuck noticed it then, filling his vision. That shade of blue. The clear sky had nothing on those eyes of his, the way he locked him in a gaze. 

Why was he looking at him like that? Okay, granted, Chuck was well aware – and did not need to be reminded, thanks – that he wasn’t the bulkiest or strongest guy now standing near-naked in the creek. He had accepted his somewhat graceless, gangly body and mop of hair, and didn’t appreciate the scrutiny. 

“Is there something … wrong?” Chuck asked, giving him a sour look. “Oh, besides, you know, the whole kidnapping scenario –”

“Hostage,” Casey corrected, as if there was honor in the distinction. “Not kidnapping.”

“I stand corrected,” Chuck deadpanned, folding his arms over his chest. “Hostage scenario, and taking all my clothes? Oh, and while you’re at it, do you have to look at me like I’m –”

“Naked?”

The unconscious reaction was to tighten his arms over his chest. “I was going to say at a noticeable disadvantage in the clothing department at this juncture, but yes, that.”

“Heh. Speakin’ of that ….” Casey turned without even aiming and gave them a little toss. Balled up, the jeans arced in the air and landed in the pot, a perfect shot. 

“How – hey – you did not –” 

“There,” Casey said, sounding smug at his marksmanship. “That’ll get the stink off ya. Almost, anyway. You don’t seem like the type, city boy, to walk around … dirty, like that.” 

Chuck narrowed his eyes because he had chuckled at the end, obviously finding humor where there was none. “You haven’t explained one part of your plan. Because I’m not going to be the one going up on the bank later when they’re ready to come out. That’s going to be you.” He thought about it and added hastily, “You are going to give those back, aren’t you?” 

“Don’t worry, cupcake,” Casey replied. “You’ll get what you need.”

Chuck’s brows drew down. He had done it again, chuckling at whatever he meant by that. “But … I feel I should remind you, you’re naked too. So, when you … since you don’t seem to have any modesty, can you at least warn me?”

“Yeah. I’ll let you know.” Casey suppressed a smile. “Wouldn’t want those virgin eyes burnin’ now, would we?” 

“Go to hell,” Chuck was careful to whisper under his breath. 

“Oh, and kid?” One more splash over his chest, and he began to move. “Now would be one of those times.”

“What do you – ah.” The eyeful of ass muscles emerging from the water – holy … ass muscles? – caught him off-guard. Sucking in a gasp, Chuck pivoted around. “More warning than that, okay?! What are you doing, anyway?”

“Getting the soap,” he heard Casey say. “You left it on the bank.”

“Next time, maybe I can just hand it to you?” Chuck offered up in a mutter.

Casey grunted, and Chuck surprised himself by translating that particular noise, roughly to, more fun this way.

Keeping his eyes on the opposite bank, not thinking about the view behind him, Chuck cocked his head to the side and waited. Splashing followed by the swish of his legs cutting the surface told him that Casey had to be wading up to his knees or thereabouts, and he should not turn around yet. Every part of that man that God handed out was still all out in the open. His now wet ass, water running down his ….

Nope. Not yet.

Standing in about waist deep, Chuck lowered himself, dipped his arms in, up to his shoulders – still so cold – and then straightened, feeling the water running down his stomach and back. He cupped a handful and brought it up, scrubbing over his face, his neck … and it became utterly quiet behind him. A warm tingly feeling, like breath on the back of his neck, told the kid he was being watched.

“I suppose you want to make a comment? That I’m too skinny?”

“Who says I’m even looking at you?” Casey then added under his breath loud enough for Chuck to hear, “But, yeah, now that you mention it, I can see your ribs, pancake.”

The kid wasn’t sure how he felt about the other man looking that closely. Even hunching his shoulders wouldn’t help cover his bare upper torso, ribs and all. “Just the way I am.” He lowered his voice and got busy using his fingertips to scrub at some dirt on his chest. “Ellie always said I could eat an entire team of my father’s horses and still look like … well, this.”

“Seems your sister has opinions about everything,” Casey said, the sound of sloshing water coming closer. 

Chuck pictured the man up to his hips, but his brain tripped on that image and forced a cough out of him. “Yeah, well, just be thankful for what you have,” he mumbled, bringing up a cupped hand of water over his lower stomach, then up to his chest. “You’re … well, you.” 

“Hm?” 

“You’re not being serious?” Eye contact without blushing was not a guarantee yet. It meant that Chuck could only tilt his head just slightly towards the lapping sound of water as Casey closed in. He imagined it, the moving current breaking around his waist, rising up his chest as he got in deeper …. 

Great. Now his cheeks were flaming.

“What?” Casey asked, the deep voice coming from directly behind him.

Chuck dared to let himself angle around, absently splashing over his upper arms, the side of his torso. “You’re going to make me say it?”

“Say what?” Casey went back to soaping his shoulders. He didn’t look over at him, which was maybe a good thing.

“God.” Chuck heaved a sigh. “All of ….” Looking down, he waved a hand vaguely in Casey’s direction, or more specifically, his chest and arms. “Well, that. I suppose you were … born that way? Came out swinging?”

Casey laughed softly. Standing there in the waist deep water, tall and naked, he seemed to redden a bit around his neck, just for a brief flicker. Without a word, he went back to working the soap up and down his chest, side to side, taking his time to then cup a hand to rinse off the suds. Methodically, and not flaunting his body, the kid noticed. Rather like it was an asset, one that Chuck figured he handled as meticulously as any weapon in his holster.

Though the hint of color remained, Casey appeared to shrug it off. “Your father? Teams of horses … I think your daddy has money. Am I right, kid?”

Chuck frowned, averted his eyes from the curious trail of soap suds. “What exactly did you say you do for a living, financier? Oh, wait. Entrepreneur? Do you really think I would talk to you about my family?” His face darkened when he realized he just shouldn’t have opened his mouth. “Besides, you can see for yourself … I have nothing.”

Casey went under and came back up, shook the water out of his hair. He kept his hands floating at his sides, his blue eyes fixed on the kid. Despite the fact he didn’t press further, Chuck knew the other man was watching his face for a tell-tale sign.  
Isn’t that perfect? He’s been here four days and already knows his face gives away everything, every thought. 

“Nothing?” Casey rubbed the stubble on his cheek, contemplating, then pushed through the water, moving upstream. Moving towards him. Chuck had found a smooth flat boulder to stand on, keeping his feet from sinking into the soft bottom, and it took a second to see that Casey intended to share it. Sure enough, the man settled next to him, within arm’s reach. “You have something.”

“What … are you getting at?” Chuck, realizing he had been fiddling with one leg of the undershorts that rode up in the current, backpedaled until his foot came to the edge of the rock. “You can see that I don’t, and if I did? I’m sure you would’ve found a way to rob me blind by – hey, what –” 

“Don’t run off,” Casey said. At the same time, his hand ran up the bend of his arm and he took a firm hold of Chuck’s shoulder. “Not that. You have a secret – and not the one you spilled already, goddess. Something … else.” Still holding him, he let his fingers draw together, tugging him so that Chuck had to step forward. “One I haven’t figured out yet. But I will.”

“You won’t be here long enough,” Chuck answered, stiffening as he pulled back. “And … you’re reading too much into –”

“Easy, tiger.” The strong, firm fingers circling his arm slowly loosened. They didn’t completely let go. “Didn’t mean to get ya ruffled.” 

“I don’t … ruffle.” Though it was confusing that the curled hand on his arm had relaxed enough to just be a firm touch. 

“Take the soap,” Casey said. “Try not to drop it.” 

Chuck watched him mull over a thought, and was taken by surprise when a hand closed over his to pass off the slippery bar. Also surprising was that he didn’t immediately drop it, but that was pushed out of his mind when Casey’s bare feet stepped on his. 

Chuck opened his mouth, ready to gripe over the affront on his foot, but for some reason Casey then turned his back on him. When he did, he shuffled closer until they almost touched, and now the kid was staring like an idiot at the broadest pair of shoulders he had laid eyes on.

“See the bullet hole?” 

“Um, I … yes, I see it.” Chuck allowed himself a moment to take a breath. How could he miss it? A bullet hole, a hollow small pit right at the meat of his shoulder where the bullet had torn through his flesh. It was terrifying, thinking of it now. Even more imposing was the expanse of bare skin, close enough to detect a tiny nick on his ribcage, another white thin scar, dipping below his hip. Marks that were a map of his life, gun fights and hurt, and the only way he would tell it. “It’s … well, it’s still there.”

He was sure Casey rolled his eyes right then. “What color is the skin around it?”

“Color?” Chuck squinted at it without really having to look. “It looks like … well, just skin?”

“Jesus,” Casey uttered, shaking his head. “Just tell me if it’s red, city boy. Look swollen?”

Chuck glared at his back. “No. Everything here is … normal.” Hell, not counting the sheer amount of brawn and curves of muscles, but he certainly wasn’t going to say it. Feeling braver, he leaned in closer. “You know, I actually didn’t do half bad. I mean, the stitches are gone – you must’ve ripped them out the night you tried to kill me –”

“Didn’t try,” Casey said, shooting a look over his shoulder, “and I think you mean the night you ran.”

Chuck huffed, since there was no winning this one. “But the rest of it … seems to be healing quite nicely.” There was a tiny spurt of pride at that, and he stood a little taller, even gave it a tiny poke. “See?”

“Yeah …. Not too shabby, kid.” Bringing a hand up to rub his neck, Casey lifted his shoulder, tested. “Now, wash it.”

“Wash … what now?” It was all Chuck could do not to lose his footing on the rock. He blinked helplessly at that very wide blockade in front of him and then scratched the back of his neck to keep his hand busy. “I don’t think you want me anywhere near … you know, you’ve probably noticed I’m a bit clumsy when it comes to –” 

“God, kid. Is it always gonna be like this with you?” Casey turned his head, meeting him eye to eye. A large palm dropped on Chuck’s hip and held him there. “What I noticed is that when you set your mind to something, you seem to be able to do it. You … have a decent pair of hands. Now clean it.” 

“Wait. Maybe I misheard that with the growling and grunting mixed in, but did you just pay me a … compliment?” Chuck shook his head, not looking down that slope of skin leading to his bare ass, wavering under the water. Right there. “And what do you mean – always? Why would you care if I –”

“Oh, hell. Just do it, kid.”

“Geez. Pushy,” Chuck muttered, conceding that he would make him. The persuasion could involve a good long dunking if he didn’t just …. 

Okay, admittedly, it would not be the most terrible task in the world to wash his back. After all, he had been being threatened, chased, shot at by the man. Standing in a cool creek with the sun on their backs with permission to touch his smooth shoulders …. He’d survive this punishment, he figured. 

So slipping the soap between his fingers, getting his hand sudsy, he rolled a palm down Casey’s shoulder, gently dabbing around the wound. Close enough to take in his scent, his skin, he breathed in the perfume of the soap, ripe pears in the fall, mixing with the pleasant tang from the smoke of the fire, burning down to hot coals on the bank.

“Careful ….” Casey jerked perceptibly when he began cleaning closer to the tear of skin. 

“I’m … trying.” And he was. The temptation wasn’t even there to hurt. He questioned himself, but the man had made it clear he wouldn’t hurt him. Maybe it evened things out. 

“And get the rest while you’re back there,” Casey said, almost a murmur, and he lowered his head, pointing his chin down. Those thick shoulders loosened, and Chuck could picture him closing his eyes.

Oh.

Get the rest? Was that another order? An impure suggestion?

Hell, did it matter? Channeling his strength to his hands, gentle and firm, he stroked over Casey’s shoulders, stopping to dip his palms in the water and drag a cupped hand up his spine. When water trickled down across the wide plane of his back, he swept his hand in circles, kneading, then dipping to the hollow of his back, eliciting a grunt ….

“I’m … not versed in the meaning behind all of your sounds, but does that –”

“It means … keep going,” Casey replied, lolling his head to the side, exposing his neck. “Yeah … do that again.”

The kid picked up the signal that he wanted the curve of his neck and the skin under his hairline washed next. Rinsing his hands, he brought up a palm and brushed over upper back, digging into the muscles, sliding to his neck … well, there was some dirt there, in the creases of his skin, making Chuck stop to rub a little soap along his nape, across the tight tendons. Satisfied, he rinsed by drawing his hand over the firm smooth flesh, letting his hand fall. 

“Oh ….” Another soft sound rumbled in the man’s throat, and the kid suddenly realized that Casey had never let go of his hip. Latched on, his large hand just rested there, fingers settled casually over his hip bone, like the familiar touch of a sleeping lover. 

Chuck cleared his throat. “That’s it.” He reached around Casey’s middle to pass off the bar of soap and stepped backwards, the hand on his hip sliding off. “I think I’ve got it all –– all of it, well, clean, you know. Because you have –” One hell of a back , and God, don’t let me start babbling like an idiot – “Uh, the soap did the work, really, I was just there to –”

“To what?”

Oh, God! To what? Gape?! 

Chuck cringed and wet his lips. “Uh, hey, here’s a thought. You could just add that to your tab when you get on your way – hotel, food, laundry services – and … whatever this just was, but –”

“Washing me?” Casey chuckled, and turned in the water to face him. “That the word you’re looking for, kid?”

Chuck took another step back, a scowl crossing his face. “I only did what I was ordered to do. It’s not like I –”

“Liked it?” His jaw relaxed into a lazy grin, and before Chuck could anticipate his next step, the man laid a hand on his bicep, fingers clamping in. He held him there, biting his lip as he studied the kid’s face. “You do bring up a point, brown eyes.”

“I … do?” Chuck frowned at him. His muscles went taut under the hold, heat seeping into his bloodstream, and he made a useless fist. Nerves, he scolded himself, but … more than nerves. 

“Yeah, payment.” Casey used the grip to turn him around, more gently than the kid thought possible. Though the rock under his foot was smooth, slippery, the steadying hand felt … secure.

“What?” Chuck began, slanting a look over his shoulder, now that he had his back to Casey. “Why are you –”

“Just … returnin’ the favor, kid,” Casey said, his voice low, the words sliding coolly over Chuck’s skin, same as the current flowing around them. “Hold still.”

The command froze him. It had nothing, however, on the large hand that slid to his nape, touched his neck in a possessive kneading touch. Casey said nothing. Just kept kneading that area, then brought his hand over his shoulder, skimming along the fine bone to the swell of lean muscle on his upper arm.

Chuck swallowed against his touch, trying to ignore the way the man’s hand rubbed between his shoulder blades, down the contour of his spine, squeezing his tendons. Tightening up everything inside. He heard a splash, figuring Casey had dipped the soap, lathering his hands, and a moment later, felt him trace the curve of his muscles in a way that had the kid aware of every press to his skin. 

Powerless, not wanting to fight it, he bowed his head, closed his eyes, and let out a breath. Let the bewilderment and fear drain from him. As the man’s touch drifted down his ribcage, knuckles sliding along the center of his back, Chuck felt a stab of need shudder down the same path.

Oh, God, don’t feel that.

“Hm. You’ve tied a muscle in a knot,” Casey rumbled, near enough for his lips to brush the still damp strands of curls. The touches sent a tremor fluttering in his stomach, and the hand on Chuck’s neck stilled. “Like that, do you?”

“It’s … not what I expected,” Chuck said, eyes still squeezed shut, maybe to block out the reality for a minute longer. “I’ll give you that much cred –”

“Chuck?” A voice in the distance jolted them. Behind him, Casey tensed, his hand falling to Chuck’s waist. “Are you here?” 

“Oh, no.” The kid’s eyes sprung open and he turned in the direction of the cabin, his mind stuttering. A woman. “Sarah?” he whispered, swore under his breath, and sucked in a lungful of air. Ready to yell, not knowing what would spill from his mouth –

But as he was caught in a tumult of thoughts, it got suddenly cold and dark. Water engulfed him – up his nose, in his ears, clogging out the sounds. The only thing that stopped a mouthful of water was the brute force of Casey’s hand over his mouth before he could let out a shout.

-x-

“Son of a bitch,” Casey ground out between his teeth. Just as the stifled protest began to squirt between his fingers, he wrapped an arm tight around Chuck’s waist and shoved the kid under the surface. Had no intention of leaving him there to die, only to get him to shut the fuck up. Holding him tight, Casey could feel the panic surge in the kid’s body as Chuck lashed out, kicked wildly, clawing at the hand clamped on his face – 

Casey shook his head and hauled him up, holding him back against his chest. “Settle down, cupcake,” he growled in his ear. The hand over his mouth stayed put. “Woulda drowned you already if I wanted to, numb nuts!”

“Mmph!” Now with his head above the water, the kid’s nostrils flared wide, his ribcage heaving, filling his lungs with air. His eyes got that wild, trapped animal fear in them, but the words seemed to penetrate. Another useless kick or two, and he stopped. 

Casey kept the kid low, close to the surface. He straightened, shifting his gaze in the direction of the voice that had called out, but thanks to the sloped bank, his line of sight towards the cabin was blocked. Fucking luck. If that wasn’t enough, his Colt was in the pack next to the clothes spread out and drying on the grass, and not having it was just another heap of feelin’ naked.

Which he was. Completely. 

Shit.

He kept the grip over the kid’s mouth and glanced down at the dark hair plastered to his head, a few loose curls standing up around his neck. Brown eyes here was not gonna like what would come next, but they would have to get out of the water, and there was no time for coyness. Or for the kid to put his damn petticoat back on. The only scrap of clothing between them was the undershorts he had insisted on keeping. 

“Let’s move,” he whispered. “Gotta find out who’s paying you a visit … and what they want.”

“Noph!” the kid eked out, pulling one arm around his middle. “Nuh mm!”

“Yeah?” Casey pulled right back. “Worried someone’s gonna see your wet skivvies? Well, save it for someone who gives a shit. Now stop digging your heels in and move.” 

God, he never listens. The fight wasn’t over, apparently. Chuck struggled blindly, still thrashing, kicking up water. So putting an end to that, the grip on the kid changed to a headlock and Casey half-carried, half-dragged him onto the bank. Hurriedly, he picked up the pack, fished out the Colt, and threw him on his back.

And then, of course, he had to sit on his chest. 

It hit then. Goddamn, out of all of the worlds of trouble he had found, it was never quite like this.

Casey bottled up a groan. Someday, this basin, this kid and that blazin’ smile of his would be just a foggy memory, lodged in a distant corner of his mind. Yep, and undoubtedly, there would be a day, sitting at a table in a smoky saloon, he’d share the tale and a bottle of whisky with a drunk who would never remember it anyway. When that happened, he might find the humor in this. 

But right now, it wasn’t quite John Casey’s proudest moment. Holding his gun and perched buck naked on a kid who looked like he had stopped breathing a minute ago. 

Well, another man’s cock rubbing against his chest, unexpected and all, might do that to a man.

“Hm?!” Chuck managed between Casey’s fingers. Still recovering from being thrown flat on his back, his gaze swooped down Casey’s chest, along the path of hair narrowing to his stomach, then lower. That was when he felt Chuck’s dark eyes trail over the interesting view of his dick, and how could he not, when it was right there, the crown to his balls touching his belly. “Nnph!” the kid strained in his throat. “Geph uph!” 

The shade of pink on his face made Casey wonder vaguely if the kid had ever found himself in this position. He watched as Chuck let out another sound of frustration and his eyes squelched shut. 

Huh. This being his second time? Chances were that could be a stretch. 

“Dammit, shh …. You’ve seen at least one of those before, haven’t ya?” Keeping his hand clamped over the kid’s mouth, the larger man glanced down at the struggling kid, his face now pale. 

Jesus. In spite of being naked and out in the open like this, he had to laugh in his throat at what would be imprinted in this kid’s mind for a good long while. 

“Just lay there and be quiet,” Casey said, lifting the Colt. Yeah, she felt good in his hand. At least now he didn’t feel quite as naked anymore. He rose up a few inches, leveling his head with the slope, since it made a decent barrier. “Sarah, eh? Let’s find out what she’s doing here.”

Casey put aside the levity, and peering towards the cabin, he saw a woman wandering across the narrow porch and peak into the window. She wasn’t what he had expected to see. Young and towheaded from what he could tell, and not the typical corn-cracker’s wife. The kind of women who worked the farms, wearing their dark, simple walking skirts and short-waisted bodices. Shoes that laced up, narrow toes. Didn’t figure anyone could walk in those foolish things. 

This girl wasn’t typical, he guessed. Her hair loose on her shoulders, she wore riding britches and a leather boots, and had a rifle slung over her back. Begrudgingly, he gave her some credit. Always had some admiration for a woman who knew how to ride and shoot. 

It took a second for her to turn, strolling towards the barn and leading what looked to be a very fine horse. “Chuck? Brought you chicken and fried cakes,” she called, putting her hands on her hips. “Taking our coffee mill, I guess … and leaving.” Girl sounded testy about that. “Where are you?”

Beneath him, the kid let out muffled yelp. 

“Don’t worry, pancake,” Casey said, withholding the teasing smirk. It’d be wasted since the kid still had his eyes shut. “Your friend will be safe. Besides, if I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s getting ready to give up on finding your scrawny ass.” 

He saw with satisfaction the flash of annoyance as she appeared in the doorway of the barn. The woman scanned the yard one last time. “C’mon, Flash,” she said, and pulled herself up on the horse. “Maybe we’ll find him on the trail … coming back from town. Let’s go, girl.” She dug in with her heels, gave a low whistle, and they started through the long grass in the direction that headed up to the ridge. 

Heh. Pretty thing. Maybe the kid beneath him wasn’t quite as untainted as appeared to be. Could be playing her along, after what he revealed. Was there anything about the pup that wasn’t as perplexing as it comes? 

It pissed him some that he had been too … busy to hear the hoofs on the trail in the first place. So what if she headed back north, never crossing in this direction? Wasn’t a damned excuse for keeping his head up his ass. Damn kid’s fault, him and his brown eyes, making distractions. 

Casey gave the woman one last narrow gaze. It would be a good day when he left this place. 

He sat back, straddling Chuck and not ashamed of his bare body, exposed to the open air and sunshine, pressed to a lean physique. Figuring it safe to move, he glimpsed down. And noticed a pair of slits for eyes. 

It took him a half-second to realize the the little sneak was watching him. 

“Careful, kid. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you like what you see.” He grinned at the dirty look Chuck managed, even with the hand over his mouth. “She’s leaving. Let her get out of range of your squealin’, though.”

Under his hand, Chuck managed to rasp out something that would get his ass kicked if he were anyone else. 

It peeved him that his brain had worded it that way. 

“Save it,” Casey replied, sinking down until his face filled the kid’s vision. This close, Chuck’s eyes widened, startled, the sun catching his irises. Their hue changed in the light, gold and tawny. Casey bent in further, careful not get too close to that swirling color. “And don’t give me that look. There is good news. Wanna hear it?”

Giving him a fuck you look, Chuck tried to turn his head to the side. 

“It just occurred to me, kid. You were lucky she didn’t come down to the creek, hm? I’d hate to have one of your neighbors thinkin’ you’re not the innocent blushing kid they know.” 

That struck a nerve. Lifting up abruptly, the kid tried to buck him off. Casey looked down and touched his cheek. “Really, tough guy, you know that’s not gonna work ….” 

But the memory of the last time he was like this, pressed to him, filled his mouth with the taste of strawberries, the feel of cool rain on his skin. Weren’t they like this a day ago, his body up against his, feeling the flex of his lean muscles, both of them soaking wet? 

One difference. Yesterday, there were more clothes involved. 

“Geph uph.”

“Easy, brown eyes,” Casey ordered, then slumped down and spread his whole body over him, the weight of his torso keeping the kid on his back. His focus caught a fine stream of water trickling down Chuck’s temple, along his cheek and chin. “You and I need to have a little talk.”

He’d been holding his hand over his lips, but now that he could let loose a holler with no fear that the young woman would hear it, Casey let his palm slide off of Chuck’ mouth. The kid breathed in, watching him with dazed eyes, before he stubbornly bit down on his lips.

Yeah, he would talk, Casey would make sure of that. The larger man dragged his hands up his arms, letting the kid feel long fingers manacling his wrists, holding his hands down on the grass on either side of his head. Casey watched as his fists clenched, once, twice, but then his fingers slackened loosely, palms up. Surrender. Or at least something like momentary acquiescence. 

“Th-this … this is familiar,” Chuck said. He flicked a look at one of his hands being held down and arched a brow. “You must have a thing for this?” 

“Do you?” Casey asked, knowing that fired-up look would rise to the top.

“I’m going to ask you again – just like yesterday,” Chuck said, dark eyes snapping, tugging on a hand that he wasn’t going to get back. Not yet. “Can you please get the hell off me?” 

“Who was that girl?” Casey demanded, not budging. “What was she doing here?”

“Why is it important to you?” The kid shook a few locks of hair out of his face, and Casey felt him stiffen now that his brain had caught up to the fact a naked man laid sprawled over him. “Can’t you just let things be? Leave her out of this. She’s just a … friend. Her family ... took me under their wing when I arrived. They live on the next farm – over the ridge.”

“Why was she taking –” 

“The coffee mill?” Chuck twisted his head to the side, his lashes sweeping down, just a flicker of a look. For some reason, Casey was struck that the kid probably didn’t know any girl would kill for those lashes. “I told you. I fix … things. That’s how I make it out here.”

“That’s it?” The jut of Chuck’s hip bone into his stomach made Casey reposition his thighs. He couldn’t help it. He figured it was all purely by chance where his dick ended up, only because Casey had finally met someone who could look him eye to eye. And with the still damp and flimsy undershorts clinging to the kid’s skin, the slight movement aligned Casey’s cock with his, pressing against something that proved the tall boy beneath him had been given one gift in proportion to his long gangly limbs. 

He shouldn’t make any more adjustments – but there. Better. 

“Oh.” Groin to groin and hard, Chuck squeezed his eyes shut, his fingers curled and flexed under Casey’s hand. But … not pulling or thrusting away from him anymore. “That’s … this is not good. You should … get up now.” 

“I think you’re missing something here.” His face was very, very close, their noses nearly touching. “Aren’t ya, boyo?”

“I …. What am I m-missing?” The kid shifted his hips, allowing a gentle bump that made him inhale. “Oh, crap.” 

Well, he didn’t miss that time. The bump left Casey with his cock pressed along the kid’s inner thigh. Achingly aware of the touch, lower, the movement sent a spike of pleasure traveling up to each contact point of wet skin, from biceps, elbows, to hands. 

“That girl,” Casey replied, lips almost close enough to brush his temple. “Trust me on this kid. She didn’t come out here across that ridge to pick up her mama’s coffee mill. I think she’s got her eyes on the tenderhorn who lives on a farm by himself … without a good woman at his side. Someone to take care of him. Looks like she could do it, too.”

“You know, somewhere in there is a dig on the fact that she can outshoot me, outride me, and could probably kick my ass and sit on me until I screamed uncle.”

“Can’t argue with that, but think of it this way, kid. You can probably put her to shame with a washboard, eh?” Casey chuckled, his fingers around Chuck’s wrists clenching in just once. “But you haven’t answered. Then … why haven’t you?"

“Why haven’t I – I don’t know what you’re asking.” Chuck seemed to be pushing himself down into the grass, like he could hide, but his voice still shook when he spoke. “Are you going to let me up now?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about,” Casey said, his tone sharper. Pulling back an inch or two, he felt the tickle of the kid’s chest hair against his pecs, and it felt good to keep him close. “Hitch up with her. Your life here would be … well, not easy, but a damn sight simpler than this.”

“Simpler? To be with someone that you can’t really … be with?” He tried to yank at Casey’s hand and then jerked his hips when that didn’t work. “Get up!”

Casey answered by pushing him back into the grass, and the kid’s eyes went black. “Why?”

“That’s not who I am, that’s why. You damn well know that, and I figured it out a while back.” He started to look away and wriggle out from under him, only managing to make his stomach muscles rub hard against Casey’s cock. “I can’t –”

“Careful, kid ….” Casey whispered, enjoying the feel of his cock hardening at the friction. 

“Oh, hell.” Chuck closed his eyes, wet his lips with the tip of tongue. 

Soft mouth. It’d be cool, sweet from the water. Just a taste. “Try not to move, brown eyes.” If he kept moving, he’d find himself in more trouble than being held flat on his back.

Possibly wanting to reclaim a little dignity, Chuck ducked his head, his temple accidently grazing Casey’s cheek. He jolted, then focused up at him, and he seemed to capture his bearings. “Maybe … in your skewed world, where lies and truth get muddled together, it doesn’t matter. The lines blur with you, don’t they? But not in my world, John.” 

Casey let out a small curse, his breath hot on Chuck’s lips. He should berate him, being bold like that, using his first name. Did he say he could do that? But the way he stilled, just the heat of their skin rolling over both of them, and watching him with those hazel eyes, earnest and piercing – 

Perhaps he could hear him say it – just this one time.

With the scorch of the sun on his back, he shifted, still chest to chest, his strong hands sliding down to the kid’s forearms. Taking a firm, unyielding hold at his elbows, he ran his thumb in the tender crook, brushing back and forth, and felt a hard quiver go through the kid under him. “What else.” He didn’t mean it to come out like a demand, it just did.

“That’s … that’s not what I want,” Chuck said, stealing a glance to his face, his neck. The tension had curled out of the kid’s spread arms, leaving him open on the ground, like six feet of fallen angel, head dropped back. He slanted a look to the side, nervously threaded a few blades of grass between his fingers. “You’ll laugh, but I … no. No.”

“Say it,” Casey murmured, clutching, not enough to bruise.

“I still believe in fate ….” Whatever he was thinking, imagining, the kid’s lips twitched and a deep breath left him. “That the right person … man will find me,” he said, the simplest answer putting that dull flush on his cheeks. “We could be miles or canyons away, or he could be as close as – but I think there’s a plan to put people together. Maybe showing up in the last place you’d guess.” He lowered his eyes, lashes hiding the look of submission. “Or maybe it’s not here, not now. Too far from everything else,” he said, “and maybe I have to face … no one out here would want a person like me.” 

“Like … you.” Casey repeated it so that someone with half a fucking brain left would listen.

“So, I warned you, and … I’ll try not to be offended. If you want to laugh, go ahead and do it.” 

Casey’s mouth was taut. He had never seen a naked expression, unshielded and utter divulgence, from another man. Only this kid, under him. He had to move, get out of here. 

For the hundredth time, he should’ve left. 

“What if it’s the wrong man?” Casey asked before he could tell himself not to. His thighs flexed, the curved terrain of muscle brushed Chuck’s lower belly, teasing his hip bone. It was like a knot was drawing tighter and tighter, but it felt so Goddamn good. 

Their faces were still so close, giving Casey a view deep into the kid’s eyes, filled with a whorl of flustered emotions. His body’s involuntary reaction embarrassed him, and he bit down on his bottom lip, his fingers digging in reflexively to Casey’s waist.

“That’s the one piece I never planned on,” Chuck said quietly, pulling back when he realized where his hands had landed. Eyes widened, saying it wasn’t safe there anymore. “I … we really should get up now.”

Except there were warm lips, a wet body, and heat. Except that he was lost. Fucking gone. Brains, common sense, all of it, and he’d need a shovel to bury this part of his life when it was done. 

Just for a pair of soulful brown eyes and a smile. 

And there would be no settling or going back. If he did it … kissed him.

When he looked down into Chuck’s face, a confused glance going from Casey’s hands to the lips close enough to graze his cheek, he knew he couldn’t help it. 

“Shut up, kid,” Casey said mildly, and he felt a budge of Chuck’s hip, a heat pressing against his belly. Not sure what to do with his hands, the kid let them fall to the grass, palms open. “Close your eyes,” Casey told him. 

“Wh–why?”

“This. It doesn’t always end up how you planned.” With one hand steering his jaw, he leaned forward then, caught Chuck’s lips before he could draw back. He kissed him hard and thoroughly and exactly what this little dumb shit needed, his hand gripping the back of his neck so he couldn’t move. A need that had been there, just waiting for him to open to it. Feeling it, his own need rose high and hard, pushing up against the thin undershorts. He knew the kid’s mouth would be like this, hot, wet, soft for him. 

But there was the kid’s hand clinging to his nape, fingers burrowing. Casey felt the trembling of his thighs, wanting to stop him, the desire to shove back. Or Chuck tried to hold him and kiss him just as hard. The world and the air were too jumbled with a sweet dull longing to discern the difference, and maybe it was both. On the bank, with the sun sparkling on the creek, leaves flitting, and the most improbable confounding man intertwined with him. 

Chuck pulled back, gasping, beautiful eyes covering every feature, lingering on the lips that were just pressed to his. He swallowed, throat bobbing with a sound, limbs wound tight beneath him. 

“You … if there was ever a wrong man, that would have to be you.”

Yeah, if God had a say in this, he probably was wrong in every damn way. 

But then there was a warm kiss, and it made him forget he should on the ridge heading north. It erased his apprehension about staying here with a man who could pull off what the kid had just done. How it made him watery for the first time in years. Maybe ever. 

Still, the kiss wasn’t quite enough. Casey wasn’t done getting a taste of him.

Not yet, brown eyes. Not yet. 

-x-End Chapter Nine On the Wings of Grace-x


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

-x- 

Every time, it wasn’t the same. The first time. 

First kisses, first touches, strokes. A good first fuck. Sometimes it was just a quick romp, a way for two men to let the steam roll off after a dirty job. There were times it was complicated by a bottle of decent booze, and the whole experience would settle over him like a blurry gauze until morning, when he’d wake up with a motherfucker of a headache and no pants, and a strange body pressed to him. Hot, sweaty limbs of a stranger. 

It got the job done. Those times, when the morning sunlight peaked through the smoky window pane, strolling over their bodies tangled in the blankets, it didn’t mean a Goddamn thing. Another kiss, and give him a gentle push out the door. 

Fun simple sex, never getting in the way of closely-guarded desires.

But right about the time he felt the press of skin and flimsy cotton, where they touched, their mouths open and beggin’, he wanted another man so badly he had to remember to breathe. 

More specifically, he wanted this first. Of course, because of all the damn sorry luck, it was this kid, him who filled Casey with warmth down to his knees, kisses like dreaming and falling without a net. Dreams where he didn’t want to wake up. It was giving him a sick-in-the stomach kind of feeling, just for a stupid young man who could suck the breath out of him, like he wanted him all along and didn’t know it. 

Overwhelmed by the body heat underneath him, hands digging into muscles on his back, common sense evaporated in the sun, just like the water still drying on their bare skin. 

Getting closer was the only thing that mattered, getting a taste, touching him. 

The first thing he noticed right off was that with the kiss, the kid’s muscles had coiled like a knot, trembling. When he opened his eyes, Casey stared down into two uncertain pools of brown, swirling with unease.

“Settle down for me ….” he heard himself murmur, because that seemed like a place to start. “Stay.” 

Chuck pointed those brown eyes up at him, opening his mouth to protest, fumbling with a place to put his hands. Finally, “You … you kissed me!” 

Casey rolled his eyes. For an apparent genius, the kid could be a little slow to process – with the right kind of provocation. “And I plan on doing it again, if you would just stop with the – Jesus, kid. Hold still.” 

“But I … can’t ….”

The little idiot pushed back, and hadn’t quite figured out this was getting him exactly nowhere. Unless he counted getting his shoulders wedged into the ground and a hard thigh pressed against his bulge, now poking through the sodden undershorts. The kid had to feel what he was doing, making his hard-on rub excruciatingly across Casey’s lower belly every time he tried to wriggle out an arm or a leg. 

“Here’s a thought, cupcake,” Casey snapped, and he dragged his knee to the side, knowing the move had his cock bearing down on the kid’s shaft. “If you don’t stop your damn squirming, you’re not gonna have a say in the matter of when or how this is gonna happen.” 

“Oh, God.” Chuck closed his eyes, nostrils flaring with an effort to take control of his breathing, or an attempt to stop the fidgeting. Neither worked too well. “That’s – oh, no.”

Casey eased his hips to the side, just a smidgen. “Easy, kid.” Yes, he had just kissed him. What’s more, he was mighty certain it was gonna happen again, unless he stopped thinking with his dick, though … his dick seemed to appreciate the rubbing which was now grinding him through the undershorts. 

“Why … why did you kiss me?” More of that squirming. God. 

“Feel that?” He breathed it against his neck, his voice thick and heavy. “This is gonna be your last chance, pancake.” Because on the off chance it wasn’t obvious, what with the kid’s cock crowding in against him, he had to give him one last out. “We can get up from here. Pretend this didn’t happen. You can go back to that little game you’re playing, giving me those big … brown-eyed looks, and – hmph?” 

He didn’t get to explain to the kid how he could – and hell, maybe should – end this by rolling off and getting away. Because just as sudden, Chuck lifted his head, and a pair of soft tentative lips pressed to his, kissing just the corner of his mouth.

The press of lips was the easiest, simplest touch, but it nailed him the same as a bullet. Since he knew how that felt. 

Chuck’s proximity, all those straight and graceless lines of his body, warmed him in the same way as a burning fire. He was heat and comfort all at once, but Casey knew it was the nerves and raw need Chuck was riding on, and when that brain of his kicked in, he would fall back on how he’d been raised. Shy, modest, and not yet ready to let go. Not yet knowing what he wanted to do, the ride he could take. 

Not yet was the operative part of that thought. 

Shifting a knee, Casey looked down into eyes so dark they were almost all pupil, and the heat made him shiver. Hell, he never did that. But with his body sprawled, legs spread over his thighs, warm lips that had touched his, all that exposure under him …. It was too much.

He lowered his head, gave him the kiss right back, slower, more pressure … and for some ungodly reason, the kid didn’t take the heavy hint and open his mouth, let him slip a tongue in. 

A closed-mouth kiss? For God sakes. He’d done this before, hadn’t he? Maybe Chuck thought this was still the time to be polite and proper, hold to his manners. Not that he had thought about it – much – but Casey assumed Chuck would show him some of those headstrong ways of his, and Casey liked the idea of willful compliance. 

When Casey pulled back, he studied the younger man. His cheeks were damp with the creek water and perspiration, and the kid’s beautiful eyes averted his gaze, uncomfortable. “You can pretend it didn’t happen, if you want,” Chuck said, placing a hesitant hand in the small of Casey’s back. “But I hope you won’t.”

Did he even know what he was doing? Because damned if that touch didn’t force a reflexive movement of his hips. 

Chuck closed his eyes and bit down on his bottom lip, seemed to enjoy it.

Holy hell. Not a clue. You’re just a wild clumsy colt, kid. But you’ll want that, won’t you?

“I don’t believe in pretenses, kid.” Casey’s hands went to Chuck’s shoulders, fingers easing around the slope of them. He didn’t want it to end there, so he inched to the side, just a small movement, savoring the pleasure of the friction. More so, the way Chuck had to suck in breath. “And generally, when I want something, I just take it.” 

“T-take?” 

“That’s right,” he said, sweeping a hand to the side of his neck. “What I want right now, brown eyes, isn’t just one of those … tender kisses. Like you’re kissing you’re mother’s sister?” 

“But ….” Chuck raised a puzzled brow and let his hand slide from Casey’s hip. “But I thought –” 

“First off, you think too damn much.” 

“I get that a lot. But what I think is that it’s a good quality to have.” Chuck frowned, and the light trace of sarcasm did not go undetected. “You know, maybe kissing you wasn’t such a –”

“Kiss. Heh.” When Chuck attempted to reposition under him, Casey pressed him back to the grass. He leaned in, his lips whispering along the side of his neck, his jaw brushing the kid’s. “There’s more to it than putting your lips against another man’s and callin’ that a kiss.”

“To be fair, I haven’t, well, really –” 

“Shut up. More like this, kid.”

It startled a noise out of him, the way Casey then crushed his mouth down on his, slow and hot, sucking and biting gently on his lips. Open for me, it said. When he didn’t, Casey cupped his jaw in his hand, holding him still for what should be a long, warm invasion, but Chuck still didn’t get it. That he should open up under him, let him set just the right rhythm, lips sliding, teeth nipping, and let his tongue fuck his mouth. Show him what his dick would be doing if he wanted it badly enough. Because he would. 

Seriously, no one was this polite. He should be doing it right back to him by now. 

At least Casey knew what to do to put an end to this. Deliberately, a large hand slid down from Chuck’s arm, his chest, to a spot right above his hip. A place that was delicate, sensitive. While the kid might have expected the touch there to be a slow caress, bare hand to his skin, Casey knew it was a way to get a response. 

Keeping his mouth moving on Chuck’s, Casey took hold of some flesh between his thumb and a finger – and gave it a little twist. 

“Mm – ah! What was that?” Chuck jerked his head back, his eyes snapping open. “You pinched me! Why did you – mm?”

There. The surprise was enough for Chuck to stare up at him, lips parted, and that was all he needed. Casey stepped in all the way, delved his tongue inside and got a nice taste of innocence. So sweet, warm … almost trusting. 

Teasing, tracing the edge of his tongue, Casey growled into his mouth at his small victory, and at the way Chuck’s tongue then slid along his, timid but willing to explore. 

Yeah, you get it, don’t you, kid? Want more?

When he pressed his mouth down this time, he showed him how to use his teeth, along his bottom lip, thrust his tongue in.

Chuck groaned, and maybe he didn’t know he had lifted his hips, but Casey did. 

Like this, kid?

As an answer to the movement, Casey fisted his hands in his hair and kissed him harder, his tongue sweeping, exploring a little deeper. It pushed another nice little moan out from under him, low and hungry, but Casey wondered who was feeling the brunt of torment, since he only wanted more of that soft warm mouth. 

So he kissed, his thumb rubbing the corner of his lips, and his other hand went to his shoulder, gripping hard. The kid’s lips parted wider, his tongue fighting back, and Casey surged down and in, liking the feel of that, slippery, smooth. 

You open up real nice, boy.

His thigh pressed firmly against his groin, Chuck made a soft noise, maybe a plea or a hum of pleasure – or it could be of utter shock at the fucking circumstances, but this wasn’t the time to sort out his noises. There were other ways to tell what was going through him. While Casey kissed him, Chuck’s hand found the hollow of Casey’s back, splayed there and diggin’ in with his fingertips along warm mounds of tight muscle. If there was any resisting, there’s only surrender now, giving in to it.

 

God. Why you’d give him this one now? This pretty man, so stripped down, eager.

He wasn’t ready to stop, but as Casey shifted, the kid pulled back and inhaled sharply, drawing a rush of warm air across his cheek. What that was all about? Opening his eyes, Casey looked down into his face, noticing the kid’s brows bunched up in concentration. 

Well, shit. Or pain. One or the other. He lay there with his eyes squeezed shut, breathing hard, like he didn’t appreciate that Casey had positioned his hips and groin to align with him perfectly, touching every part of him.

“Hey. Open your eyes,” Casey ordered, wanting to see what was hidden there. “Thought you said it was okay.”

Chuck wet his lips, possibly feeling the lingering touch of the kiss, and slowly his eyes drifted open. His face was very, very close, washed in scarlet. Being this close made his eyes look huge, filling Casey’s vision, and brown was never as soulful and warm as it was on this kid. 

“We need to talk,” Chuck stammered, lashes lowering as he glanced down.

“Talk,” Casey echoed, wishing there was a stick within reach so that he could poke his ears out. “Listen, kid. You may not be too hard on the eyes –”

“Too – what? Was that a compliment? Because if you play it back to yourself, it didn’t really sound quite – mmm!”

Casey couldn’t help but encourage his mouth open the right kind of way with a dirty little push, hoping that would do it. But that plan didn’t quite materialize. The kid wriggled under him again and pulled back. 

“John – can you listen – gah.” 

“Kid,” he breathed into Chuck’s almost parted lips. “Right now, talking is the last thing we should be doing.” 

Had the kid turned his head to meet the press of lips, that would’ve ended this. But no. For some reason, he thought he had something that had to get out now. He slanted his head, and the kisses Casey meant to keep him quiet landed on the straying edge of his mouth. 

“Casey.” Steeling himself, Chuck arched his head back to read more of his face. “Why are you doing this?”

“For the same reason you’re letting me do this,” Casey answered, lips moving across his stubbly cheek, taunting. He slid a hand down to find the curve of his hip, a resting place until he felt it would be okay to go lower. “The way you’re burning up, kid? I was thinking you wanna … go down this road with me.”

“I … the only thing I want right now is to get up.” It was damn confounding that at the same time, the kid splayed his hand on his bare chest, making small circles with his thumb over one of Casey’s pecs. What the hell. Was he flirting, and his mouth wasn’t connected to his hand? “That kiss was … well, nice … but we really should get up right now.”

“How do you figure?” Casey insisted, not budging. “’Cause the thought is that no one should be getting up just yet.” Which meant the request – and the pained, restless look – was pissing him off.

“Please?”

“God.” Casey huffed out a breath and propped his hands in the grass on either side of his head, gazing down at his face. “Kid, do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do?” 

“It’s not what you think.” Because, hell, if he wanted him to get up, why the gentle hand on him, caressing the contour of muscle, swirling around a hard nipple? As if the kid could read his thoughts, he suddenly jolted when he seemed to finally register where that hand was traveling. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have –” 

Hell, he should have. Should be lower and beggin’ for it by now. 

Casey smirked down at that guilty look, now that the kid got his hand caught in a place Casey would like to have it again. “What. Are you in a hurry? Can’t wait to –” 

“It’s not that. There’s something poking me –” Chuck flattened the palm of one hand on his chest, and that time he did push. “It hurts!”

Casey had to bite down on his lip. Genius, this one. “If you keep struggling, cupcake, it’s gonna be a hell of a lot more than some poke –”

“No, not that!” He slammed his eyes shut and whispered something, maybe a curse at the tell-tale erection pressed solidly to Casey’s. “I know what that is,” Chuck answered hurriedly, and his other hand trailed down Casey’s back whether the kid knew it or not. “I’m not that naïve, okay?” 

“You sure about that?” 

“Hah. But that’s not the … poke I’m referring to. There’s something under my shoulder. It’s killing me, and if you would just move your – well, off to the side? Then I can lift – ah! I mean that’s not the one that’s killing me … right now. Well, in a way it is, but – oh. Hold on –”

“Didn’t I just say not to do that?” Fuck! Couldn’t he tell the hip movements and wriggling were making him hard as hell?

“Sorry! I’m just trying to – please move.”

Casey felt a smart slap to his backside. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked. “Because If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re trying to manipulate me, hot shot.” 

“It’s not that!”

Oh, yeah? All right, so maybe fucking with him should not be this much fun, but when his color rose a little more, Casey was pleased to get the confirmation that he felt it by the inch. Every one of them. 

“Ow. It’s under my shoulder, digging into –” 

“Ah, hell.” Casey lifted some of his bulk off of him, letting Chuck raise his back some. 

“Thank you! Sheesh!” The kid gave him a look. He reached under his shoulder, grabbed on to something and tugged it out. “What this? Oh.”

Son of a bitch. Casey didn’t hear the rest of the stammering, not when his eyes found the muzzle of his Colt 45 pointed straight at the bridge of his nose. 

“Where the hell,” Casey asked between gritted teeth, “did you get that?” Though it should’ve been obvious, he figured. He was the one who had pulled it from the pack when the unexpected visitor arrived, and somehow set it down when their bodies got tangled. Now the gun was in the hand of the worst shot in the county, aimed at his head.

Except … he wasn’t really aiming. The pistol hung loose in the kid’s hand, since he had picked it up by slipping his finger through the goddamn trigger guard, the loop of metal that protected the trigger from an accidental bump. 

Perhaps it wasn’t an accident, and it could be he had plans to shoot him right now. If anyone had motive, it was the kid.  
But the way Chuck’s eyes flew open when he saw what he held, and his hand shaking, surely the plan wasn’t to plug Casey between the eyes and let him die with a proud piece of wood pressed to him. 

Cursing regardless, Casey didn’t wait to ask. A pair of strong hands landed on the kid’s shoulders. “Hey. Put that …. For fuck sakes, don’t touch –”

“I didn’t – oh.” Whether it was the surprise or a case of jitters at finding two loaded weapons within a dangerous vicinity, Chuck’s brows shot up, and the gun wavered. “I’ve never handled one like this bef –”

“Stop holding it like that and just hand it over –”

That was when the bullet flew by his ear. 

Just as quickly, Casey caught hold of his arm and used his body to flatten the kid to the ground, twice as hard as a minute ago. He breathed in the sharp, poignant residue of the gunpowder, and waited for the ringing shot to clear his eardrums. 

As he raised his head, he saw that Chuck had sucked in a deep breath and would’ve jumped a foot in the air, save for the considerable brawn holding him down. He didn’t look much like a cold-hearted assassin. Not with the way his face had paled to ash white, or the way he had closed his eyes.

“Princess?” Casey said in a deceptively mild tone, giving him a sour look.

“Y-yes?” Chuck’s nose wrinkled after a second. “Wait. I didn’t mean to answer to –” 

“Look at me.” Casey noticed his voice was hoarse, but almost having his head blown off made it excusable. 

“Before I open my eyes … are you bleeding?”

“Do it.” Finally, Chuck’s large dark eyes looked up, and as the men regarded each other, Casey’s jaw clenched. “Wanna explain what happened right there, kid?”

“Oh my God …. I didn’t … I wasn’t trying to! Honest, it –”

“Here’s a tip for you, goddess. If you don’t try to kill the man who has plans to bed you, you wouldn’t be a damn vir –”

“Bed me? That’s makes it sound like we’re, I don’t know, stallions or something–”

“– in the first place!” he growled. Then Casey leaned down, bracing his hands on the ground, and stared hard into his eyes. “Because that foreplay right there? With the gun? Could be a mood killer for some men.”

“Wait. Did you call me –?” 

“Stuff it.” Casey ripped the gun out of his hands and rolled off of him. Methodically, he held the stock while emptying out the cylinder of the last few bullets, not taking his eyes off the kid’s face. “You little … Jesus Christ.”

“I can tell you’re mad,” Chuck started, “but I –”

“Why don’t you explain to me what you thought was going to happen when you pulled the trigger, eh?” 

“My hands were sweating. It was slippery!” Hearing it, Chuck cringed, because yes, he did sound like an imbecile. He pushed himself up on his elbows, watching the larger man breathlessly, his eyes giving one good drag up Casey’s legs to his hands as he snapped the cylinder back in place. “I didn’t think!”

“That’s your defense,” Casey said, lifting a brow. “You didn’t think.”

“I … um.” Chuck paused to wet his lips, which told Casey that he might’ve just figured out he was staring. “It was an accident,” he blurted, looking away.

“That so?” Casey got up and jammed the gun in his pack, bare naked and not hiding it. 

The kid blinked at him. “I … I didn’t try and shoot you right then.”

Had he a stich of clothing on, Casey might’ve picked him up by that mop of damp hair and given him a good shake. But hurting him might just backfire right now, and he had no intention of giving him that kind of hurt. 

Instead, he sat down next to the kid and brought his knees up, resting his forearms on them. To be honest, he had brushed by death’s door plenty of times, but never in the hands of a man quite like this one. Or like now, sitting naked on the grass with that same tempting man stretched out next to him. 

“Just so you know, cupcake, if you were anyone else, you’d be dead by now.”

“That’s … comforting,” Chuck said dryly. His eyes darted over to him, landed in the space between his knees, and his face ignited like the sparks from the flame. “I – I told you, I’m not good with guns.”

“God. Just stop trying to explain it,” Casey muttered. “I believe you.” 

“You do?”

Casey’s mouth went dry, since he couldn’t remember when he had last uttered those words. “Look at it this way,” he said, making a point of letting his eyes travel over that guileless face, down a bit further. “I already knew you were the sorriest excuse of a pistol handler that ever crossed the Mississippi. Shouldn’t have let you within a reach of a gun.”

“Wow.” The kid folded his arms over his chest. Bristled. “That’s quite an apology there.”

“Don’t give me that look,” Casey warned. “You’re the one that almost killed me.” He reached, his hand gentling on Chuck’s neck, thumb stroking a quick pass over the flushed jaw. “Just be thankful that I know you didn’t mean it.” Out of the corner of his mouth, he added, “Hell, with your aim, you’d blow your own goddamn cock off before hitting me.”

“Glad you have faith in my abilities.” But like a good boy, and a willing one, he didn’t jerk away from his hand this time. The dull blush, though, increased while he tried to hide something with his own hand that Casey promised himself he would get a fair look at later. “It’s just … not something I have a lot of practice with.”

“Some lessons wouldn’t kill ya.” Casey cocked an eye at him. “Maybe you’d stop being afraid if you just figured out how to use one.”

“Um,” was all Chuck could come up with. One sweep of his eyes along Casey’s arms, his chest – getting a good look, kid? – and he focused on his own feet. “Are you okay?” 

“Fine,” Casey mumbled, shaking his head. “But don’t think I’ve forgotten. That’s the second time you’ve tried to blow my head off this week.” 

“If … if it’s any consolation,” Chuck said, forcing a smile, “I didn’t mean to shoot you the second time.” 

“I assume there won’t be a third, killer?”

“Funny.” Chuck had a hard time looking away, Casey noticed, but he seemed to fall back on that skittishness, like he finally realized who the hard-on was for. After a moment, his eyes swept down and he looked off to the side. “I should go.”

“Go?” Casey eyed him. Not much surprised him anymore, but Holy Christ, no one was that green. You were the one who got my dick hard in the first place, city boy. Trying to tease me with those shy smiles, brushing your long body up against me like that …. 

“You need to –– you have to get dressed and I’m sure you want – privacy?” 

Kid’s not exactly a mind reader.

Casey scrubbed his hand over his jaw, shaking away the image of two gawky youngsters sparking under a tree. What he wanted was this kid on his knees or his back – and he wasn’t particular which way.

Wouldn’t it just figure that the kid had other ideas? No sooner had he spoken, Chuck scrambled to his feet and grabbed the first piece of clothing he could reach, hoping to cover a substantial bulge clinging to his wet undershorts. Heh. Futile, but he could try.

Casey indulged himself in a long look, and a shadow of a smile crossed the larger man’s face. Yeah, he’s a pretty kid, even after getting dumped into a creek, and now standing there soaking wet, water trickling over that lean rangy body of his …. 

“Privacy, eh.” Casey gave him an expression of all innocence – and held out his hand. “If you want me to get dressed, kid, I’m going to need to start with what you’re holding.”

“What?”

“My undershorts, princess.” Casey snapped his fingers and chuckled softly at the thought of getting the view of that fine pecker from here. “Pass them over.”

Chuck twisted his head down to take a look. “Your … dammit.” But proving he could think on his feet, he scooted to the side, bent over and swiped a pair of jeans to cover his obvious ache. “Here. Take them,” he said quickly, handing off the undershorts once the pants blocked the swell between his legs. 

Too bad those were Casey’s jeans.

Casey’s amused look touched on his hands and back up to his red face. “When you’re done with my pants, I’m gonna need those next.”

“In some deviant way, you’re enjoying this too much.”

For that, Casey snapped his fingers again. “Waitin’.”

“God, you can be a big bastard,” the kid muttered. He grimaced, spun around, and tossed the pants over his shoulder. “Take them.”

“Couldn’t hand them to me?” Casey asked, slanting a grin now that the kid had his back turned. 

“Aren’t you ever going to learn tact?” Chuck scrambled for the second pair of jeans drying on the ground. Up they went, shimmying over his knees, thighs, to his narrow hips. 

“Tried that once when I was twelve. It didn’t work out so well for me.” Casey leaned back, getting a good view of every flex and shift of Chuck’s tight ass through the wet cotton briefs before it was hidden. There was a bit of a struggle when he got to the buttons over the fly, judging by the way he had to swivel his hips to get his pants cinched over his stiff dick, making it all nice and proper. Good luck with that, kid. 

Casey let his gaze roam down his spine to his ass, now tucked away in the pants, and gave a cynical eye roll. Why hide that firm ass, boyo, and waste the effort of pulling them on, when Casey would bet his family pocket watch they’d be off later. Later. It raked over him like a rusty saw blade. Shoulda been now, holding him down on the grass and doing a dozen filthy deeds, making his cheeks bloom, leaving bites on the back of his neck, so tender and exposed – 

But Casey easily picked up on the direction of his thoughts. The kid needed some distance and time or some other fucking torment to roll around in his mind. So, while Chuck quickly searched for the rest of his clothes, Casey slipped on his undershorts, knowing the kid was going to walk away from him right now.

Think you’re being a smart boy? Keeping safe?

Well, maybe he’d think about what just happened in the water, on the grassy bank, pressed to the last man on the earth he should be touching. He felt it, right? That knot of tension firing through his belly? 

You’ll ask for it. Wanting it as bad as water or air.

“I have chores to do,” Chuck said, breaking Casey out of his wanderings. It was then that he saw the kid had put a shirt on, not yet buttoned up. The hem of the light blue top fluttered, falling open, revealing the pale flesh of his chest, the fine layer of dark hair trailing down. “I need to go.”

“Chores?” Casey repeated, staring at him, mostly in disbelief. Peeved by this little show, he rose, sliding on the pair of jeans that were mostly dry by now, not daring to give him a lingering stare. That would just make the kid try to disappear for good. “Where do you think you’re going?” 

Chuck swallowed, giving away every sign of his nervousness, but stood straight. His hands began to make quick work of the buttons, like it was possible to cover his vulnerability out in the wide open. He crossed his arms when he was done. “You don’t have to follow me,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere. Just the barn.”

When the dark eyes turned on him, large and desolate, they asked him not to follow.

Casey gave him a narrow look, but turned his back, because he had no interest in watching him leave. Hell, the kid had been nearly vibrating under him, covered in a sheen of sweat, and not from the creek. 

So that was that, eh?

-x-

“Just to be clear, brown eyes, you are gonna pay for this.”

Three hours ago, that was the iron-clad sentiment he had grumbled under his breath. It came right about the time Chuck rounded the corner of the house and dropped from Casey’s line of sight. At that moment, Casey shifted his scrutiny to the cooling pot – only to grasp that he was stuck with finishing the wash. 

“Still women’s work,” Casey groused to himself, stringing each article of clothing out on the grass, lying flat to dry. “He should be out here. Next time … I reckon he can damn well finish what he started.”

He’s not even going to think about how pissed he is at himself for feelin’ hurt, like a giant gaping abyss just opened up when the kid hightailed it away from him. 

Nuh-uh. Not thinkin’ about it.

-x-

Long, even strands of raw wood curled under his knife, perfect cuts peeling away smoothly. They landed next to his boot, a neat pile that grew with each flick of his blade.

Whittling. Now that was a man’s task. Done with his hands. None of this drying and folding foolishness. Hell, whittling was one of the Arts of Manliness as far as Casey was concerned, and no one was going to tell him differently.

That, and shootin’. Those were the measures of a man. 

Once he had dried the laundry, folded the laundry, Casey brushed his hands together and set out to put his world back in balance again. First, he had lugged a small table from the tiny parlor out onto the kid’s plank porch and took a seat. Then, he unfurled his pack and lined up his guns, one by one like good soldiers at attention. Each got the special treatment. Well, the best he could muster up considering the meager circumstances. Liam’s home in town was a palace compared to this place, where he had access to the right tools and cloths. More of his guns were there as well, which Liam had neglected to pack when Casey had to leave. With urgency. Maybe chased by an armed posse, sniffing for his blood.

But that was beside the point. 

He had knives, too, and when the cleaning and polishing job made him start to feel more himself, he found a small aspen branch, big as his wrist around, and began to whittle away at it. 

Yeah, you might’ve run to your barn to get away, but was that far enough?

Squinting down at the branch, Casey used a pull stroke he had taught himself with the knife. Clean, fresh coils under the rough surface fell away. 

His intuition told him being here would just open up scars. The cut of leaving in a few days would pull stitches that had healed over wounds almost as old as him. 

He shouldn’t be thinking of him. He should be formulating the exit strategy, knowing when he would be headed West on his horse, without looking over his shoulder at a … stupid-ass smile. But to get mad, he had to have feelings, and he knew he was born without those. 

Feelings. 

Puh.

There was more of the stray twig on the floor than in his hand by now, paring away. Then more.

Jesus. 

What was that smile supposed to be, anyway? Ridiculous, the way he looked down or off to the side when he broke into that beam of sunshine. Except that one time … in the strawberry patch.

Casey grunted. Hell. Looks like a dolt when he does that. Maybe he should tell him.

Another perfect curl of raw wood landed next to his heel. There was no fashion or shape to what he was forming in his hands by taking the layers off with the blade. It was just a distraction, paring away the shavings piece by piece. Getting lost in it was the point. Eliminating layers gradually, eventually something would come of the block of wood. 

He jerked back as the tip of the knife slipped, giving him a harrowing blink of resistance as the blade caught the meat of a finger. 

“Shit,” Casey breathed. Reflexes kicked in, and Casey shook his hand in the air and then popped his thumb in his mouth without thinking. The salty tang of blood hit his tongue. When was the last time he had slipped with the knife? Years. “Jesus, what was that?” he asked himself harshly, then blamed the fading light. Had to be that.

He kept his thumb there a second or two longer before pulling it out, giving it a brisk examination. Fortunately, he had been quick to pull back, because the bleeding was already slowing. Hardly a scratch. Just clumsiness, like the damn kid was wearing off on him or something. Which was just another reason to get out of here.

One edge of the cleaning rag took care of rest of it, and he went back to whittling what was left of the branch. It had been so easy to focus on it, just let it pull him in, immerse him in anything besides his own thoughts. As he watched his hands, the blade, Casey became aware of the waning sun, drenching the porch in golden light. Sending long shadows towards the barn, dark and quiet. 

What the hell was he up to? 

When his stomach growled, well, that was enough. He lifted his head and glared towards the barn, but figured he was stuck with that too – preparing supper. Christ. More women’s work, though tonight it’d be taken care of, since the lady on the horse had left a tin filled with a chicken pie, fresh bread, and pickles. 

Even as he thought it, Casey got up, brushed off the loose sawdust from his jeans, and went inside. The flames in the stove had died, leaving simmering coals, and he placed the tin in the cooking drawer. Back out on the porch, he slouched in the chair and picked up one of the guns, shoving it in his pack.

Grabbing the next one, he looked up, for some reason his eyes drawn to the barn door. The kid. Chuck had walked along the split wood fence that ran beside a plot next to the barn, and maybe the dwindling sunlight had drawn him out. He stood with his back to him, looking out at the pasture, the long grass beyond, where eventually the ridge and trees rose up from the flat land. Staying back, like he would get lost in the coming darkness. 

Casey set the pack down and waited to see what he would do, but the kid seemed content to rest his elbows on the rail and just stare out at the meadow. He wore those jeans that he had picked off the bank before he ran, and they were riding low on his hips. Because he was leaning against the fence, the denim strained over that tight little ass of his. Over six feet of temptation, and he knew what it looked like with hardly a stitch on it.

While he settled back in the chair, Casey continued to study him thoroughly, the way his body was aligned at the fence, emphasizing the relaxed slope of his back. Not knowing he was being examined, the kid rubbed one of his shoulders, and pulled his shirt tighter around his chest. Keeping in the heat.

If he went out there, he could kiss him, get warm. He could hold him there, let his fingers trace the curve of that ass, tell him not to move, just to feel that. 

Or he could go in the house, stoke the stove, and search for another of those brown bottles the kid was sure to have stashed away somewhere.

Casey stayed still, then gently laid his pack next to his rifle. He couldn’t help but glance past him to where the sun rested on the ridge, half hidden, stark beams raking over the meadow. Clouds painted in pink and orange hues put the world in a fuzzy glow, but that couldn’t keep his attention. Standing there, looking like an abandoned puppy, Casey just watched the kid as the final light of day barely touched his skin, outlining every inch of his body. 

Wonder what it would be like to stroke that lean back, smooth his lips over his nape …. What it feels like.

He shouldn’t be afraid to let him, or afraid to see the reflection of himself in a stranger’s eyes. 

No one had made him feel new and shiny in a damn long time. Need and want could burn, Casey knew that, but he’d never felt it threaten to incinerate every rational calculated part of him. All of that careful, hard shrewdness that had made him a perfunctory man burned off like kerosene. 

Sure, it was a damn good burn on the way down, like reaching the bottom of a whiskey bottle, but he never did find anything worth a damn in the bottom of that bottle.

Whatever propelled him out of the chair, it had nothing to do with thought and rationality. Those had been pushed away in favor of sheer response. Urges. He only needed, couldn’t stay there with the power of it pulling him forward.

 

Let everything go, all the shit settled in deep, and see where it takes them. Hasn’t that worked so far? 

First is this. You’re gonna look at me, brown eyes. 

-x-

The cool evening air should’ve seeped the warmth from him. It should’ve told him to go back inside, feel the radiating heat from the stove, but it was a different kind of heat that pulled him towards the barn, one that made him curse his own lack of self-control.

God, he was acting like a damn teenager. Even his heart pounded against his chest a little faster. He couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to disturb Chuck’s minute or two of reflecting, but he kept walking over the path that led to the side of the barn. When he was close enough to almost reach out and caress his nape, if he wanted to, Casey shuffled to a halt. 

Of course the kid had been aware of his presence, hearing his boots in the grass, because he didn’t startle at all. At the sound, he cocked his head towards him, making brief eye contact, before turning back to face the ridge. “It’s the one thing that’s better here than at home,” he said, his voice quiet.

“What’s that?” Casey asked.

“Sunsets.” The kid nodded without turning, still leaning his elbows on the top rail of the split fence. “You have to stop what you’re doing to catch it. When the sun looks like that? Peeking over the top of the ridge … golden and fiery. It only lasts a few minutes … when it’s perfect … like this.” Chuck lowered his head, looking down at his hands. “As if … it’s someone’s way of reminding us to live before it’s gone.” 

Casey folded his arms over his coat, and grunted. 

“Oh, that too,” Chuck replied, raising a brow in amusement. Then he angled around to face the evening sky, and became serious. “So, I’m waiting.”

“For what?”

“The sarcasm? Or didn’t you hear what I just said?” 

Casey watched him lift a boot to rest on the lower rail. “It’s a view … I don’t mind,” he said, thankful Chuck couldn’t see the smile tugging the corner of his mouth. 

Only the kid didn’t have to turn around after all, because the curls over his collar did nothing to hide the reddened skin of his neck. Automatically, he pushed a hand through his hair and cleared his throat, a twitchy gesture which told Casey he might just be reminiscing about a cool creek, a warm kiss. “You saw plenty,” Chuck objected, “and again, thanks for the humiliation.” 

Casey noticed he hadn’t thanked him yet for the hard-on or wet lips, but that would come. Pointing out that the kid’s body had given him up would only cause him to duck and run, which would defeat the purpose of being out here in the first place. And all he wanted to do was be here.

Ignoring the thoughts that they both had to be thinking, Casey strolled in a little closer. He took a moment to look towards the sunset, all the colors, the flawlessness of it. Pristine, just for now. Kid was right about that. But Casey’s eyes were then drawn to the raw-boned physique of the man in front of him, an absorbing contrast, his silhouette bounded in darkness from behind. 

“But if it’s the only thing better than home, why the hell are you here?” Casey asked. “’Cause I gotta tell you, city boy, I can’t figure it out. What did you expect to find out here … exactly in the middle of the loneliest place a man could plant his feet?”

“Not what I expected to find,” Chuck answered, resting his chin in his hand. “I … wasn’t looking to the place I was headed.”  
“Hm?” Casey’s boots shifted, and there was just the space of one man between him and Chuck now. “Care to explain that?”  
Chuck kept his eyes straight ahead, and Casey could see his shoulders stiffen under his shirt. “Just to get out of the place I was. Sometimes to find a dream, you’ve got to get away from the ones who will stop you.”

“Dreams. Eh.” Casey was about to suggest those were some fine words he could use to strum another tune on that instrument of his, but he was finding the kid didn’t always appreciate his sense of humor. Found it sarcastic for some damn reason or another. “So you ran away?”

The kid veered his head, letting Casey get a look at his profile. “Haven’t you ever run away?”

“No.” 

“Really? What about now? Showing up here?”

Figured the kid would be too smart for his own good. “I’d like to think of that more as … a safe passage.”

“Nice word for escape,” Chuck said, but a light smile crossed his face.

That smile right there? Might as well be an invitation, Casey decided. He shrugged and moved in behind him, placing his foot on the bottom slat next to Chuck’s. After some consideration, he slipped his hat off his head and plunked it on the fence post. “The first time … setting out on my own …? I just left. There’s a difference.”

“Is there?” Now that he was well aware of Casey’s proximity, the kid turned to flash brown eyes filled with cautious curiosity. “How?”

Casey looked away. The mere seconds could’ve been counted off with his heartbeats, but that was all the time it took for the sun to slide behind the trees along the upper lip of the canyon. Mindful that the kid was still watching him, he stared ahead and fingered his holster. No one had ever asked him questions like that, or pointed a pair of warm eyes at him while doing it. This kid had two pairs of aces and didn’t even know it. Sure as hell didn’t know how to use it. 

“My ma remarried after my pa died. A farmer – widower – willing to take in a woman with four kids.” Knowing that his hand being close enough to touch could spook him, Casey rested his on the rail a few inches from Chuck’s. This put him within an arm’s reach of the kid’s back, and his hand could trace curves of lean muscles – if he wanted to touch it there. “The man had two of his own. I was the oldest. They didn’t know what to do with a boy bigger than that man. A boy who challenged him … maybe was some trouble he didn’t need.”

“So you just … left?”

Casey shrugged.

“How old were you?” Chuck asked.

“Seventeen.” That was a bit of a stretch. He was fifteen, but the story was easier to tell – for people to take – when he put it that way. “I was a stupid kid. But I thought I could take care of myself, and I figured they would be better off without me there.”

Chuck’s mouth fell open. “Did you ever go back?”

“To what?” Casey shook his head and finally just gave in to the urge to move in close. He placed his other hand on the rail, now on either side of him, his thick arms effectively boxing the kid in. Chuck had to be aware of every shift against his buttocks, barely touching, the press of his thigh on one of the kid’s hips, but if he felt it, he wasn’t pulling away. “No reason to go back.”

The kid turned his head and swallowed hard, his throat bobbing. Yeah, he felt it. “I … was enrolled at Belmont when I was seventeen.”

“Belmont?”

“It’s a, well, a private boarding school for boys. Outside of Boston.” He was looking up through those lashes, studying his face. “We couldn’t come from two places farther apart, you and me. The two most improbable men in the same spot – right here, like this.” 

So I wonder what brought me here … to you.

It wasn’t until Chuck slanted him a long look over his shoulder that Casey realized he’d spoken his thoughts aloud. 

“I wish I knew.” Suddenly uncomfortable with being caught staring, Chuck flicked one last glance and turned his head towards the meadow. He shifted on his feet, like the awkward gangling kid he was trying not to be, and his hand then inched over until the side of it brushed Casey’s. Had to be an accident, but he didn’t move it back.

“You know,” Chuck said casually after a moment. “There are a hundred reasons I should angry with you.”

“Yeah?” Casey moved his hand, brushing his thumb over his knuckles. Just twice, before he pulled away. “You’re still here, aren’t ya?” 

“I meant yesterday. When you tackled me in the rain?”

Casey’s blue eyes rose, then narrowed. Like he could forget? “What about it?”

It was dark enough now for the purple-blue shadows to bathe them in the day’s afterglow, shadows they could taste and smell. It was enough to notice the line of his jaw, his lips moist with the nervous lick of his tongue. And God, those eyes. A man could sink to dangerous depths within them if he wasn’t careful. “The strawberries,” Chuck said. “Did you forget?”

His belly stirred, then a deeper flex a bit lower. He tried to ignore it. But the thoughts couldn’t be chased away, and however the kid was looking at him, biting down on his lips and washing his memory with strawberries and rain, a lean body pressed to his – it made his fingers twitch. So did his dick. Yeah, like that. 

“I didn’t forget.”

“I was … thinking,” Chuck suggested gently, looking where Casey’s hand rested, “tonight would’ve been the night to make that pie.”

When Chuck turned to face the meadow, Casey could only see untidy brown curls at the back of his head, hiding the kid’s expression. But he knew. Oh, you little fucking cock tease. Sweet goddamn virtuous pie. You haven’t learned yet to say what you want.

You will.

Casey pressed his chest to Chuck’s back, his breath caressing the back of his neck, and the kid stilled. Would he lean back into him? He could put his hips firmly against his denim britches, let the kid feel how his cock was still hard from rolling in the grass along the bank.

“What do you want me to do?” As he posed the question, Casey’s lips grazed the edge of his ear. “I can do a lot. I can walk away. I could kill you with my bare hands … if I wanted to, but I don’t. I like this … better.”

He should show him. While he lay naked under him, show him what his bare hands were capable of.

Thinking that’s what he had to do, Casey slid an arm around Chuck’s waist from behind, and let his hand drift down to the band of his jeans, then up and under the shirt. He wasn’t wrong about much, so he knew what he’d find. He’d be warm for him, like this. As his hand moved over his belly, his chest, it skimmed the expected path of smooth heated flesh under his hands, and he felt the kid hitch at the gentler rub, back and forth.

“Is this okay?” Casey asked, and his voice had gotten throaty. “Is that what you were wanting?”

In answer, Chuck breathed out, and with only the tiniest hesitation, ran his fingers lightly along Casey’s forearm. Strumming his skin like he was the musical instrument this time, strung tight and pitched high. “I think you know,” he managed. “Why do I have to say it?”

Because that wasn’t good enough, and if this was going to happen tonight with the most unlikely man on the planet, he wanted to hear it. 

“Oh, you are not going to play that with me,” Casey rumbled. “That’s your first lesson tonight. I don’t do games.”

“Play? I don’t mean to – ah.”

Casey had brought up a hand on the side of his jaw and throat, dragging his attention around and forcing him to meet his gaze. “There. That’s better. For starters, when you talk, you damn well better look at me, brown eyes.” His fingers tightened along his jaw, not quite working a wince out of him. “What do you want me to do?” 

“I don’t exactly fit into your plans, either, do I?” Chuck replied, and Casey felt the hand on his forearm digging in, proving the kid had decent grip after all. “You can start by saying that.”

Casey leaned forward then, pushing him back against the fence, and why was he thinking the word hostage? “Say it,” he said in husky voice, stroking his arm, all the way down, and then he gripped his wrist with his own hot palm, as if they were bound together. In every way, they were now two hostages. “What … should I do?”

He could see Chuck look down, close his eyes. 

“Just … keep going, okay?” he murmured. “Right now, that’s what I want.”

-x-End Chapter Ten Wings of Grace-x-


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

“You do know … what you’re asking for.” Still holding Chuck’s face in his hand, a hairsbreadth away from his, there was no chance of escape without answering the question. “Because, I gotta tell you kid, once we start this, you need to know something.” Casey’s hand climbed up the smooth skin of his ribcage, and when he felt the kid hitch, he had to smile. “We’re not going to stop.” 

As if stopping was an option. It wasn’t, since loud as words, this kid’s body gave away everything. Coming from behind him, with Chuck’s back flattened to his chest, he could feel him nearly vibrating under his touch. Hungry for contact, and maybe that was true for both of them. Casey would only need to let his hand drift down and around Chuck’s waist, and he’d have another answer from the kid. A healthy reaction to his careful touches and demanding kisses now strained against the kid’s britches, and though Chuck faced away from him, the hard-on validated what Casey had discovered the first day with him, that it was a man’s touch he craved. 

Yeah, those were his answers. But Casey still needed to hear him say it. 

Chuck bit down on his bottom lip, self-conscious to be this close and have to verbalize that the erection in his pants wasn’t a secret. “I’m here, aren’t I? You can probably see … I’m not fighting you, or trying to run away. Is that enough?”

“That’s … a fair start, boyo,” Casey said after making him wait. However, he wasn’t an idiot. If Casey pushed him, the boldness that got the kid this far could fade like the last licks of the sun’s rays, now just a blue-purple memory on the low clouds. But hell, he could be subtle, couldn’t he? So leaning in, Casey pressed into the taut body, and placed his lips against Chuck’s ear. “Like it when you ask me, though. Tell me what else you want.” 

See? Fucking subtle, right there.

“What else?” 

God, the kid’s voice cracked. So much for delicate handling. Smiling against the back of his neck, Casey’s hand moved across Chuck’s lower belly, and he was hoping the kid would ask him to lose the pants, but easy now … he’s willing, not a race horse. “Yeah …. Tell me.”

“Your hand … you’re warm. That’s one thing I like.”

One thing. It was simple, too. But when he said it, Casey felt everything in him go tight, alert. After all of the wrangling and acts of coyness the kid seemed to have down pat, decisiveness from this awkward boy forced him to draw in a slow, steadying breath. Then expelled it against his temple, his hardening groin touching his hip. Warm, eh?

True, the kid still had a fair amount of that skittishness he seemed to have a hard time shedding. The way he avoided his eyes, lowering those long lashes of his, his nervous way of pushing a hand through his dark curls. Quirky, tense gestures that Casey already deciphered as agitation and disbelief with himself that he would do this, all of his doubts running through him.

But then, he told him what he wanted, Just keep going. The words, delicious to hear from him, were all but written permission. By that, Casey would have to show him what he wanted. 

And later, sometime tonight when they found themselves tangled in the dark, he was going to show Chuck what he needed. Unlock what’s been hidden, and the kid didn’t even know that about himself just yet. 

Hell. He was a naïve kid, but obedient and pretty, and Casey could work with that. Even better, Chuck would ask. He wouldn’t even know it, holding him hard enough to leave a mark, fingernails digging in his back, that’s he’s asking for it. 

For now, he could give the kid those warm touches he seemed to want – because the dumb little shit wanted them, and had only just now owned up to it. 

Knowing that he had the kid’s full attention – not that he had given him a choice, with the way Casey’s finger’s remained firmly clamped along the angle of his jaw – he thought this would be the time to tell him what was going to happen next. 

“Kid?” Casey inclined his head, his gaze lingering over Chuck’s startled face, and brushed a thumb over his bottom lip, back and forth a few times. See, nothing scary here, cupcake. “I’m … gonna kiss you now, seeing that it’s okay to keep going,” he said in a low voice. “It is okay, isn’t it?”

Sure it was. He wanted to get kissed senseless. Kissed until he made those little fucking whimpers in his throat. Just didn’t know how to ask, was that it, kid? 

Admittedly, Casey was not always the most patient teacher, but this time, he was willing to help him get started.

The kid wouldn’t stop him, either, Casey knew that much – but he could see Chuck grab the edge of the fence with one hand, steadying himself. One more kiss to scatter the case of nerves. Casey dipped his head, their lips touching and his breath caressing his face. And one more.

Okay, he had to rub his cock against his hip. Had to. 

You want my lips there? Need my tongue pushing into your mouth ... the way my cock will be pushing into your ass?

Abruptly, the kid jerked his head free, but he didn’t pull back. No, he stayed. Chuck had given himself some breathing room, and maybe the kid needed just that tiny semblance of control before he lost every last bit of it.

“You can do it again, you know,” Chuck suggested gently. “If you want to kiss me, that is.”

“That was the plan. You moved.”

“Sorry. It was the, uh ….”

My dick digging into your leg, kid? You can say it.

Casey leaned forward, brushed his knuckles over the stubble of his cheek. He obliged – by showing him, since the kid seemed to be a hands-on kind of learner. There was an answer of hot breath to his, because even as Casey pressed his mouth to Chuck’s, the kid was still mumbling out the rest of something to tell him. 

Eventually, he’ll learn when Casey wants him to talk, to hear him say dirty little demands, or how fucking bad he wants him. 

Now was not one of those times.

The kid doesn’t quite get it, of course. Fitting his mouth over Chuck’s made the kid seal his lips together, which, in Casey’s first lesson earlier, happened to be the opposite move he had intended. Lips sealed for a kiss was fine for your aunty, boyo.

But for the man who’s fisting the front of your shirt, fingers brushing bare skin at the throat, the man who will have his hands in your pants – and you’ll return the favor – somehow Casey needed to remind him what a full-on kiss felt like. 

And it wasn’t that. Sliding an arm around his middle, Casey held the kid there while he kissed him, pinning him down a little harder. Getting a good taste of Chuck’s mouth, firm, moist and slightly salty, he felt the kid’s hand slide to his wrist, squeezing. Vaguely, he wondered if Chuck knew that the stiffness could be interpreted as resistance. Something else Casey was learning was that he liked to start slow, but this was going to kill him. If he kept kissing him like this. The kiss was made up of clumsy little unsure stops and starts that were more instinct than experience. 

Instinct, he could handle. 

“No more playing, kid,” Casey growled against his lips. Before Chuck could say something else, Casey pressed his big body right up to him and shifted his feet, so that now they were lined up on the outside of the kid’s boots, and it had him completely hemmed in on all sides. Casey moved his hips, an unhurried drag over his hip bone, and who knew this kid’s lean body could feel so good?

“What’re you doing now?” Chuck said, a little winded, because his thighs were now tucked between Casey’s, his back pushed tight to the fence. And from the front, chest to chest, the larger man could feel Chuck’s heart hammering like a drum beat.

Casey pulled back, just enough to speak against his lips. “Teaching you to use your tongue for something useful.”

“Not what I meant. I mean your –” 

Might as well take the opening. Casey caught his mouth, and this time when he kissed, his tongue slid along the kid’s, rhythmic little pushes that told him how it would feel with his cock inside him. Will feel. 

Yeah? Keep it easy for you … this time? You want long slow strokes, kid? How 'bout ones that give me little moans, saying how deep to go and still be comfortable ….

‘Cause I can give you just that.

“Mmph?”” 

“No.” Okay, so he had not a clue what the kid was asking, but Casey shut that down by sucking his tongue into his mouth, groaning around the wordless little protest. A large hand migrated down, latching onto one of the kid’s hips, holding him and pressing in with his own hips. 

The benefits of this positioning, the rubbing abrasion, didn’t need words. The interlocked knees and the fence gave Casey some leverage to work with, a nice grip to hold him there, and a way to show the kid why he should reciprocate, just to get a feel of him through the front of his britches. 

It’s not a surprise that Chuck was rock-hard against him, but Casey had to smile against his lips, fingers sliding into his thick hair. With his mouth occupied, the kid couldn’t say what he wanted, Casey knew, so on a bet, he gave him a few more grinding strokes, rubbing his cock against his. 

There? That it, kid?

One more excruciating drag, and Chuck took in a sharp inhalation, pushed back and … now, Casey understood the little shove was to position himself. It allowed Chuck to return the favor, which he did, by grinding up against him. 

Casey clenched his teeth at the sheer pleasure of it. Oh, you little shit. 

Yeah, do that again. 

Maybe after questioning himself, now the kid knew why he was staying here, his back to that fence, and that had Casey totally fucking hard, the whole realization as hot as a scald to his nerves. 

It was a bold move from the kid, that leisurely grind over him, their cocks bumping. Jesus, finally. An activity where he joined in, eager participant and all, his raw enjoyment and arousal punching past his doubts. Past the cautiousness he was gonna have to lose. Even after another stroke, the kid jolted at his own brazenness, as if it were someone else who just swished his cock over Casey’s dick, and the uncertainty made him lose his balance just a bit. 

It also made him shift to the side, and Casey wasn’t as amused with his hips suddenly fucking air instead of covering the front of the kid’s pants. 

“Have somewhere to go?” Casey remarked, pulling back only far enough to speak. He should ask, though the answer was no, because Chuck was going to be doing that little grind and swish again. “Don’t tell me I’m boring you already.”

“What? Bored?” His eyes were huge since they were a scant inch or two from his. “I think you could say overwhelmed is probably a more pertinent description.” 

Casey brought up a hand, gentle on his face, and swiped a thumb over his moist bottom lip. He had been sucking on it a few seconds ago, but the opportunity to pester him a little and watch that color lap his cheeks was too great. Particularly because he wanted more of his rubbing, that friction, and with the kid, he knew he needed to make a point of it. 

“Overwhelmed is what they’re calling it now back east, eh? Out here, we just call it turning ruttish.”

“Rut?” Chuck cocked his head. He held onto the top rail for balance, chest heaving, so getting out even that one word was an accomplishment. “What now?” 

The question made Casey raise a brow. Apparently being kissed senseless really did interfere with the genius’ capacity to process information. Casey took that as a good sign. For later, of course, because if kissing threw him off, a good fuck should leave those sweet boy inhibitions tossed aside like wadded up shirts and pants, heaped on the floor. 

He wondered what Chuck would be like, letting his guard down. What it would be like to see him thrash under the blankets, telling Casey how he wanted it. 

There were a few moments between them before Casey realized he was staring, tilting his head so his blue eyes, his lips, were just beyond Chuck’s reach. The kid made it confusing, because when Casey touched him, it muddled up exactly who the hell wanted what.

Blinking away his own idiocy, not ready to explore that train of thought any further, Casey just focused on his dark eyes. 

“Never mind what it means. You moved away from me.” Casey’s voice was low, his lips touching Chuck’s cheek. “But what you did, with your … hips. Before then? That move, I could appreciate, brown eyes.” When he glanced down, his hand glided up Chuck’s shirt, while the other dropped until one of his fingers hooked over his belt. Seizing the opportunity, a few fingers slid past the waistband, and he got a feel of warm skin, sweaty, just a couple knuckle lengths under the pants. 

“Ah. I should warn you, because it seems like the thing to do when you have your – gah .… I’m ticklish. I know, I know, someone of my stature should not have to worry about being sensitive … there, but my sister used to –” 

“Nuh-uh. No sister talk.” Now that he had a handle, Casey used the hook to jostle him. “I liked it.” 

“Tickling me?”

Casey rolled his eyes, because seriously, has he been paying any attention? “You should do it again.” 

Chuck swallowed, like he couldn’t work up an answer. It made Casey wonder about the futility of making out with a man who maybe hasn’t had his ticket punched. With any other cowboy, he’d have his pants off by now and fucking him hard against the fence. 

But for some reason, the kid’s hesitation has drawn him in like bait, and even though they’re acting like two stupid kids, it’s the sexiest damn thing Casey can remember. 

The thought broke off when Chuck nodded, curled a hand in Casey’s shirt. “You feel really … good right now, and if… you think it’s okay, I want to … touch you again.” 

Casey shrugged. Touching was a start, at least. “Did you hear me complainin’?”

Chuck smiled. He relocated, getting close again, his eyes drifting shut. The hand that had been holding fell lower, fumbled for the hem of Casey’s shirt. Moving up over smooth bare skin, Casey felt a ripple under the touch of his palm, splayed against his chest. The kid’s hands felt good on his skin. He wanted to keep them there. 

As if he could hear it, Chuck wrapped his arm around him and hung on, and now it felt even better. He’s stronger than he looks, and maybe it’s just his neediness. 

Hell. Or fear. 

When Chuck flexed against him, rubbing back and forth, Casey returned the favor. Keeping it firm, grinding up against him, he closed his eyes at the delicious scuff of cloth and pressure over his cock. “There …” Casey breathed, biting down on his bottom lip. “Come on. Wanna feel that again.” 

Chuck twisted a little when the next sweep pushed his ass cheek against the fence rail. Since there were no complaints to go with the glazed look, Casey gave him one more just like it. 

Look at them, behaving like a couple of virgins, sparking behind a barn. Cool air, purple sky, and a willing man against his body. 

Kind of perfect, just like this. 

Casey closed that inch he had put between them, bumped the kid’s lips with his mouth. Open up. The warmth of his mouth, layered with spiciness, was hard to let go. He really didn’t want to, now that their lips were fitting together, and even Chuck delved his tongue into Casey’s mouth for some tentative exploration. Letting him know he should keep going, in fact had explicit orders to do so, Casey tangled with his tongue, just to hear that little moan. Clamping his hand on Chuck’s hip, Casey made it a little wet and messy, since the kid seemed to lose his high strung ways when he had something else to think about. Besides the stiffening erection pressed between their thighs. 

Once Casey replayed that thought, it made his stomach muscles clench, and his balls drew up dangerously. A surge of hot lust came closer to the surface than it had been yet. It would be so damn easy just to ….

Easy, easy ….

The activity under the belt went on. Steady, even. It was simple, trapping each other’s dicks and rubbing, but at the next long stroke, Casey decided to get some attention away from the action before the kid overanalyzed his cock being pressed against a man he was only just beginning to trust.

Chuck trusted him, right? 

He wrestled that thought away since now he had him here. Casey ran his hand over the kid’s smooth shoulder, and gave his bottom lip a little lick. God, that soft mouth. Then he bit at it just slightly, curious to find out if the kid wanted that – and he had an answer in an intelligible noise that meant nothing in words, but spoke directly to Casey’s crotch. 

Like to be licked, eh, brown eyes?

And didn’t that sound admit that he’s begging to be led? He just needed to find a man who could lead him. It was a plea that made him harder, as if that was even possible. Playing kiddie dick swords over each other’s pants didn’t seem quite so juvenile anymore. 

Still, it’d be a mistake to give him time to focus on the erection that’s not his shoving him backwards into the fence rail. Even with the shadows, the light waning and crickets chirping, Casey had a suspicion the kid could be spooked if he tugged him along too quickly. 

“I think you were on to something tonight, kid.” Casey lips brushed his temple. “Ever see a … sunset like that one?”

Chuck pulled back with a half-murmur, those brown eyes looking lost. “I guess I’ve never – oh.” Then at the slow grinding up against him, he added just barely audible, “Oh, shit.” 

Yeah. Right there. Just this silly-ass rubbing had already made the kid’s temple moist. Casey could feel it under his lips, wondered what he would look like stripped down and sweating. If he got this worked up over just a bit of friendly friction, Casey likewise had to wonder how Chuck would hold up when they lost the damn pants. Because that would be next.

After he adjusted one more time, Casey moved a hard thigh between his, still keeping the contact points aligned, and – oh, hell. It was time to give thanks for that sturdy fence, as good as a wall. Enough for Chuck to push back against him … like that. 

Fuck. 

“God, that’s ….” Chuck closed his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s it.” Casey leaned forward, lips grazed a mess of dark curls. “You should … push back again.” Because it felt so damn good, the kid giving him a rub over his cock, and in the whirl of emotion pouring off Chuck, it’s exactly like a willful surrender.

On the next drag, Chuck sucked in a tight gasp, his eyes popping open to capture Casey’s. “This is probably not the time, but –”

“No probably about it, cupcake. Whatever you’re thinking, it is the wrong time.”

“I need to ask you something.” The kid seemed embarrassed that it had to come out that way. The question, however, was softened by the beginnings of a crooked smile. “Do you plan on … keeping me here?”

Casey’s hand, in the midst of tracing circles along the kid’s stomach, stilled. “That was the plan so far,” he answered, pulling back to study his face. “Why? Is there something wrong, kid? Or is there somewhere else you want to be?” Another circle, his fingertip dipping lower. “Hm?”

“N-no, no, no … I mean, it’s not that.” Passing his fingers over Casey’s shirt, Chuck’s eyes darted down to the place where their bodies were still crowded together, to the hand drawing on his bare stomach where his shirt had rucked up. “It’s just that ….” He flushed, and it was kind of beautiful to see. “I think my back is going to have a permanent indentation? You know, due to the …. Well – ah –Yes, that.” 

Hey, Casey was only trying to help, he figured. That little poke right then was just an assist to get the words out, since the stuttering was beginning to take hold.

Sliding his hand into Chuck’s waistband, Casey idly stroked the flesh he could touch, the need to possess that firm smooth skin keeping it there. He could just keep going, really he should, and make the kid forget his damn back against that fence. He’d take him here and now, end the fight.

With other men, nothing else mattered a damn bit, did it? It was all about feeding a need, and if the other interested party in that particular arrangement had an inexplicable physical – or hell, ten times worse – emotional boundary, he’d drop and run. Even if the job was still begging to be finished.

This time, for a reason that would confound him later when he thought about it, Casey stepped back, his eyes locked on Chuck’s – and acting like some love-sick idiot, he shrugged off the jacket. Methodically, not fighting the compulsion, he folded it over his arm a few times, and tried not to consider what he knew he was afraid of wanting. But that didn’t stop him from wanting it so much. A voice told him each fold tucked away another tiny scrap of his sanity. 

He told that voice to kindly shut the fuck up.

“Move,” Casey told him when he had the coat neatly folded.

“Move?” Chuck’s brows scrunched up. “You know, if you’re going to expect me to understand what you mean from here on out, I have a piece of advice for you. You’re going to have to speak in more than … grunts of – hey – what’re you –”

“Jesus. You can’t fight me every time.” Casey shook his head. His palm slid up past the kid’s elbow, gripping his bicep, and he then pulled him away from the fence. “I meant this. Move.”

“Here’s a little tip for you. Instead of the overly-precise one syllable words, you could actually – oh.” 

Before he could finish, Casey had placed his coat over the rail and pushed the kid back up against it. “That take care of your precious back, goddess?”

Chuck started to argue, but he looked briefly over his shoulder and wriggled his back. “Huh. You’re … quite … resourceful,” he said, sounding suspicious, and maybe sarcastic. “But I guess this is a little better.”

“Not yet, it isn’t.” Right now, a mile of pale unexplored flesh was just waiting for the taking. Stepping neatly into the space he had vacated, bodies close and arms holding him, Casey bowed his head, lowered his lips to his tender throat. Feeling the kid’s fingers reflexively convulse at his warmth, he kissed him under his ear.

Chuck swallowed against the touch.

First just another kiss, soft and warm on his flesh there, making the kid huff through his nose and tip his head, granting access. 

Like that, do you?

Angling his head made it easier to latch onto the long tendon, so of course Casey had to then bite down on it, working a gasp out of him. Casey noticed the kid didn’t move his head, though. Eyes closed, he still offered up his neck, permitting Casey to get his teeth on his skin, leave a little imprint he might see at the breakfast table tomorrow. Maybe the day after that.

The thought of dragging his shirt off his shoulder was making his dick nearly puncture denim. Dropping another little nip, Casey pulled at his top until the top button gave resistance. Hell, this was going to have to go. He slid his hands up, rumpling the fabric along the way, and took hold of the collar. With his hand grasping his open shirt-front, tugging, he kissed and played with a spot on his neck, and his fingers began working the top button. 

Chuck lurched backwards and froze. “What … what are you doing?”

One more bite, then tracing the curve of his neck with his tongue, Casey lifted his head. “Should be obvious,” he answered, his voice settling into a lower register. “Didn’t think you wanted me to stop.”

At least the kid had the tiniest hint of a wary smile on his face, though his body had drawn taut. “No – wait. I mean, yes.” 

Casey narrowed his eyes. “What?”

“God, I’m not –” The kid stopped and brought up a hand to scrub the back of his neck. As Casey watched him, Chuck took hold of his arm, tighter than he expected, and bent forward to brush his cheek against his. “You surprised me, that’s all,” he whispered to his ear. “Go easy, okay? I’m not apologizing for being … well –”

“Inexperienced the word you’re looking for?” Casey delivered it with a smirk. And there was no way that those were goose bumps following the kid’s palm on his forearm. Just the night air. 

“Maybe …. Okay, yes. That’s part of it.” Casey could hear it, nerves making the kid’s voice shake, but he wet his throat and plowed on. “But I want to … remember this. Just go slow, can you do that?” His gaze shifted back up to Casey’s face. “I’m … not what you’re used to, and I’m not ever sure what that is, but I have a feeling someone like me … might be new to you, too. So, go slow.” 

He moved, and accident or not, Chuck’s left leg brushed Casey’s, over the swell in his pants, and it took everything not to bend him over the fence and fuck him then and there. But if the kid wanted it that way, then he was going to do it. 

Go slow.

Casey contemplated that profile, rolled Chuck’s collar between his fingers. “Suppose this time I won’t hear any protests if I take your shirt?”

Another smile, a little uneasy, but it was there. The kid ran his hands to Casey’s thick upper arms, and he was squeezing, maybe without knowing it. “Uh, no … none. No protests, I promise.” His smile broadened. “As long as I get everything back the way it was.”

“Heh.” While he chuckled at the thought, Casey methodically unbuttoned the shirt for him. The strip of bare chest begged to be touched, fondled, and the moment the last button came undone, Casey drew his palms up his middle, past his ribcage. Massaging, gripping, almost enough to bruise, to really feel him. 

Chuck dug his fingers into Casey’s biceps. Swayed a little. “Your hands … they’re– still warm.”

“You’re burning up, kid,” Casey answered, lowering his head to kiss the fine bone along his shoulder, then down. “I should tell you one thing, though.”

“Yeah? Oh.” 

“Don’t count on getting everything back the way it was.”

“Do you think there’s a way you could be more cryptic, because I – ah.” 

“Nothing cryptic about that,” Casey said against the meat of his pec, where he had sunk his teeth in. For good measure, he did it one more time, working another gasp from him, and then licked the red imprint with the tip of his tongue. “Got that? Or do I need to repeat it?”

“I can’t ….” Chuck still had his eyes closed, his breath catching in his throat. But he didn’t move to stop him, Casey noticed, which meant he could do it again. Lighter that time, giving the mark a tease with his tongue. “God, Casey.” 

“See, kid?” Casey said, lips moving down the center of his chest, now that he had bared it for himself. “That’s something else you’re not getting back the way it was.” When he trailed his mouth back up, Casey moved over to his left nipple and began to nibble, torment. 

“Ah … hell.” Chuck arched his back and tipped his head up, sucking in a breath. “God, I … I’ve never … like that.”

If he’s ever heard permission before, well, from his lips to Casey’s groin. Holding his back against the fence, Casey made the decision to taunt him there again, closed his teeth over his nipple. Gentle, but enough to roll the tiny nub between them, kiss and suck. Until Chuck arched harder, and shivered. 

So Casey was forced to use his knee to firmly anchor him. Looking up, he saw Chuck’s eyelids flutter, and from within the cocoon of his arms, he could feel the heat of that long body aligned to him. 

“Yeah? You like it. Not all men feel that – getting licked there.” Casey wanted nothing more than to study the reaction, and what his hands could do, too, so he pulled back, used the pad of his thumb over the nub. Watching him tense, brushing lightly, Casey clutched his hip and said roughly, “I’ll have to remember that.” 

“You make it sound … like there will be time to forget.” Chuck straightened and looked past him, up the ridge, and Casey had to admit the semblance of coherence surprised him some. So did the pair of chocolate eyes, now studying him. “You’re leaving soon, aren’t you?”

When he said the words in an odd, soft voice, Casey heard something beyond the confusion. But there was no fucking way he was going to have this conversation right now. The arousal against his hip would have to serve as an answer, and he kissed the hollow of his neck, concentrating on just the warmth, the taste of his clean bare skin. The wire-tense muscles curled as the kid leaned back, and Casey felt every movement under his lips, beneath his hand on his waist. 

It’s not remotely fair that he knew how to translate his body. Or maybe the message wasn’t fair. 

“You’re not afraid, are you?” Casey asked, lifting his head to meet his eyes.

“The truth?”

Casey’s hand came down, coasting over his stomach. “You know I’m going to get it out of you, so yeah. That would be preferable at a time like this.” 

“Terrified,” Chuck replied, a flicker of unease making him look down. “How’s that for honesty?”

Casey grunted, since he never had much use for it. While he watched for Chuck’s body to give away more of an answer, he skimmed a thumb over the kid’s throat, down the center of his chest. “Do you trust me?”

The kid slanted his head at him, startled by the question. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

“I’ll put it this way, then. Do you trust me enough?” he asked.

The nuance wasn’t lost on him. Chuck pressed his lips together, and raising his head, his attention settled first on Casey’s lips, before shifting to his eyes. 

“You’ve had a hundred chances to hurt me, and each time you seemed … to do exactly what I didn’t expect. I do … enough to know that no matter what happens, right now, it’ll be okay.” 

“Good,” Casey said a little gruffly. He stared at him, hoping the next sounds out of the kid weren’t about trust or honesty, but helpless resistance. One hand snagging the front of his shirt, he took the opportunity to pull him in with a hard urgent kiss, the other hand cupping his jaw to keep it that way. Lips parting with a straining heat, Casey lowered his head, sucking at the point where his neck met his shoulder. When the kid groaned, he kissed his way down his throat, the center of his chest, warm and sweat-slicked skin against his lips.

Then Casey pulled back, still watching him, and dropped to his knees. 

Goddamn it, he had no idea why he did, he just did it. 

He could hear a harsh intake of air above him, the touch of a hand passing over his shoulder. “Casey – this is … you’re making me – oh.”

The ground under them was still wet from the rain storm the day before, when they were trapped in the cave and shared some body heat. The slight dampness seeped through the knees of his jeans, but this was the very last thing Casey was thinking about. 

Because right now, he had an awkwardly handsome and pure man gazing down at him with wide open eyes. Chuck’s shirt, which Casey had courteously unbuttoned for him, fluttered loose, showing his lean pectorals and dark sprinkling of chest hair. Both arms were draped over the top rail, on either side, as if this was the only thing holding him up. 

Not to worry, pancake. I’m not gonna let you fall.

The kid had to think the buttons of his pants were next, but the desire to keep him guessing and a little off balance had Casey taking the unexpected route. Though he was on his knees, he could still peer into the kid’s eyes, nearly black in the dark. They were confused, but there was a yearning under the surface, and Casey was certain he felt a shudder run through him. Holding him by his hips, Casey dragged a settling hand along the back of Chuck’s thigh. 

Easy, tiger … not leaving you like this.

Then Casey leaned in, angled his head, and bit the outside of his pants. Gently, of course. 

Chuck made a soft grunt, a sound swirling with bewilderment, yet burning with need. It gave Casey what he wanted, so he did it again.

Bit him. There. It took no effort to get his teeth sunk in and perfectly aligned around him. Jesus, the substantial bulge against the kid’s pants could lead a blind man to the target. And since an approving moan had bubbled up, Casey took good care to leave tender nips along the denim, beginning at the root and leaving off at the swell of his crown. So far, teeth to skin contact wasn’t an issue, so he gave a little bit harder of a bite on the way back down. 

“Oh, God,” Chuck whispered, blinking down at him, and he reminded Casey of a greenhorn climbing off a wild mustang. Dazed, unsteady, and breathing hard. “…. You’re teasing me …?”

“Tease? Nah, I wouldn’t do that to you, kid.” Casey had to suppress a grin, leaving one more bite along the bulge in his pants. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said to him. “You’re wondering what this would feel like … without the jeans.” 

The wordless little noise could be taken as affirmation, Casey figured. 

“So fucking good … but you’re still wondering if you belong here.” Casey’s thumb caressed where his teeth left off. “And you want to know what it would feel like, my mouth around you. Something to make you forget everything else ….” 

Flexing a hand over him, Casey couldn’t ignore his own need any longer, either. He needed to get a taste of his flesh, feel it under his tongue. With one hand anchoring his hip on the fence, he sat up higher on his knees, and on a whim, dipped his tongue against Chuck’s flat abdomen, the last inch of skin above his waistband. He heard Chuck exhale, and on instinct, the kid squirmed a little as Casey trailed his tongue to his hipbone. 

“Shit ….” He liked to hear it, that the kid’s voice was ragged, hoarse. “Need you to ….”

“Need it? That means you're forgetting ... all that fear.” His fingers contracted around him again, feeling the outline of his crown through is britches. “All you can do is feel.” Here he could use his teeth again, and gave a little nip and tongue swish before leaning back to watch the reaction. “That’s good, kid.” So good. 

Chuck’s head was tipped back, eyes closed. His hands, though, gave away everything. Tightly gripping the rail, turning his knuckles white, they were clenched like they held a raw need or he would shatter. The kid whimpered at the stroke of Casey’s palm down his length, still on the outside of his pants. “My God. I –” 

“Brown eyes?” Casey broke in, rocking back on his knees, his eyes working up the kid’s body. “What I need is for you to look at me.” 

Chuck swallowed. As he obeyed, Casey slipped one hand into the waistband of his jeans, let his fingers trail through his pubic hair. The kid’s body tensed, arching his hips. His stiff dick was right there, if Casey would just move his fingers down an inch or two …. 

So he did, reaching in further and wrapping a fist around the perfect curve of him. With a more than decent handful of bare skin, Casey pumped him a few times, lazily, just to see him flush. Yeah, beautiful. 

“That’s … oh.” Chuck panted softly, thrusting his hips right when Casey skimmed his fingers down further again, running along his cock. “Casey … please….”

For that, Casey smiled. He was happy to comply with what was to come after please, even if the words ended with a tiny groan. “You’ve been so good, all this time, haven’t you?” Casey worked his hand up and down, taking his time. If he kept jerking him, he’d end this too soon, and he wasn’t ready to end it with a hand job. Kissing his lower belly, he pulled his palm up to his belly. “Not even touching yourself like that, I bet. Never do anything wrong, do you.” Until now.

The kid made a frustrated sound. “God … why are you –”

“Don’t try to figure it out. It’s all going to fit.” Casey murmured it, though, not wanting to distract the kid with humor he wouldn’t appreciate or even get anyway. 

“John, I – what’s – is this another way to kill me? Since drowning in the creek didn’t work?”

Casey smirked at the theatrics, since even the kid didn’t believe that anymore. “Ever let a man suck you off?” he asked, rubbing the pad of his thumb over smooth hard skin. “You want to let go, don’t you?” 

The kid shut his eyes, a transgression Casey decided to let slide, considering the circumstances. “I can’t … I can’t say – Jesus!”

Now his thumb stretched the cotton of his briefs, feeling a reflexive tightening, and Casey bit down on his lip to gain his balance. Fuck, he could beg with his body, this one. And there was nothing more that Casey wanted to hear. 

“Not a problem, sunshine.” Casey looked up and plucked the first button. “Maybe I should show you what you want.”

-x-End On the Wings of Grace Chapter Eleven-x-


	12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

-x-

Casey doubted the kid would be able to even answer the question, the way he looked like he had stopped breathing, right about the time his brain grappled with the word suck. It wasn’t helping that when he asked it, Casey had a hand on his pants.

Hell, this fine kid, raised with pilgrim manners and all? Undoubtedly this was a first for him.

As the more experienced party in this arrangement – because, really, look at him – Casey took his duties seriously. After all, the kid said he wanted to remember this, and even if the pace killed him, he would see to that. 

Casey’s hand smoothed over the muscles that had tensed across Chuck’s stomach. Tight and firm, he took a moment to dig his palm in, touching, everything under his fingers becoming rigid as stone. 

He peered up. “Don’t tell me you’re nervous. And if you are, stop it.”

“Stop it? Well, isn’t that helpful?”

“Yeah.” Casey cocked a brow. “Sure you wanna be that sassy, considering where my hand is?”

“Oh. P-point.”

Casey grunted and got back to the job, unlatching that first button, then the second. Heading down, his fingers skimmed over the impressive mound between his thighs. Even hidden in the undershorts, Casey was able to appreciate the kid’s enthusiasm for his efforts so far. 

As Casey released the final button, noting the slight pressure of his hand resting on Chuck’s hard groin, the kid couldn’t help but let out a little whimper. That noise was going to do him in. Hearing it, Casey forced himself to remember the plan. He was the one who’s supposed to be calm and in control. Strong enough to hold this boy up. 

His fingers slid down further, still outside the undershorts, and gave his cock a little squeeze. “Still thinking about your sore back and that fence, brown eyes?”

“Jesus ….” Chuck whispered, and Casey figured he had an answer by the way his hands fisted the rail. Watching the kid get tugged to the brink so easily, like a leather rein draped around his neck, was keeping his own dick this close to puncturing a sturdy pair of britches. But he wasn’t going to let him off that easily just yet.

“Settle down,” Casey said, brushing his knuckles down his length and knowing damn well that would have the opposite effect. The temptation was in his face, so who could blame him. “This new for you? Getting sucked off?”

Chuck licked his lips to wet them and finally shook his head. “I’ve … never. Well, you could put it this way.” He looked up to the twilight sky to avoid Casey’s piercing stare. “Yes, okay? And now that I’ve admitted, I’d be grateful if you could withhold your laughter.”

“Hey.” Casey tapped his thigh. “Told you – need to see your eyes.” 

Chuck kept his attention skyward and cleared his throat. “I’m not ready to look at you.” 

Casey shrugged – and bit him again. A little less gently, but there was still cloth in the way, so it seemed like a reasonable thing to do. 

“What’re – ah! Did you really just bite me?! Okay! What do you want?”

“First, I said look at me. I’m not laughing, am I, kid?” True, he wasn’t, partly because after spending almost a week with the kid, this wasn’t exactly shocking, and partly because the mere idea of being the first was … appealing. 

For some damn reason, it also made his dick as hard as a rod of steel. Son of a bitch. Casey reached down to make a little adjustment to his cock, pressing against the restraint of denim. It was only somewhat better, but he had to remind himself, now that he had the kid up against the fence, panting between those sweet lips, Casey only needed a temporary reprieve. 

His hand on Chuck’s waist deliberately slipped down, far enough to test diameter if he wanted to. It would be enticing, just to make an O with his thumb and finger, give him another little grip and slide. But holding off, he drew it out and latched onto a belt loop. 

“First things first, kid.” He paused there to lean in, smooth his lips right above the pants, hanging low on his hips. “Now that I took care of the buttons for you, you’re not gonna mind what I do next?”

“I – What –?”

“Good.” Casey chuckled, his hands kneading, then going to the dip of his pelvis. Why waste words? He could’ve had him bent over and wailing by the time the kid managed to stammer out that piece of brilliant dialogue. “I’m gonna need your pants, kid.”

“Again with the pants?” Chuck’s brows disappeared under a tuft of curls. “Just so you know, I’ve been able to take off my own pants for years now!” 

Casey slanted a look up. “Quite an argument you make there, cupcake.”

“I told you. I haven’t – I mean, look around, Casey. It’s not every day out here that this happens to me.”

“Point for you, kid,” Casey replied, and now that the flap of his pants hung loose, he scooted his hands on each side of the kid’s middle and tucked his thumbs in the waistband. “Let’s see what God gave ya, eh, princess?”

“What!? Hey, you could be a little more, I don’t know, romantic or – hey!” Chuck’s pants were around his ankles by the time his weak protest was out. 

Naturally, Casey had been courteous enough to take the undershorts with them all the way down in one giant drag. Now that the kid was bare assed, there was no sense waiting for the modesty to kick in. What he needed to get through this was a strong helping hand. 

Like the one clasped over his cock, already working him. Slow and easy.

“Nice,” Casey murmured. He made a point of lowering his head when he said it, letting his breath brush over what looked to be a beautiful hard curve, long enough to get more than a handful. He weighed the girth in his hand like a bag of silver dollars, and smiled. “Assuming, city boy, you don’t mind this?”

“Oh, hell.” Chuck watched the hand doing wonderful, wicked things to him, putting his body in a constant quiver. Reflexively, his hips began tight little thrusts into the grip on his cock. “Jesus …. That’s … oh.” It whistled out between his clenched teeth, and Casey answered with a low sexy laugh.

“I take it this is good so far?” Casey punctuated the question with another stroke. “Knew you were well-hung. Those wet skivvies … down at the creek? Didn’t do much to hide what you were sportin’, champ.”

The kid drew in a breath and did the only thing he could. He arched his back against the fence and hung on. 

Look at him. All wanton and needy and ready. Just from a little subtle handling.

So Casey backed off, pumping at a pace to keep him from spurting too soon. 

Eyes strolling up his body, Casey realized he had been studying him, noticing how Chuck had already picked up on a clumsy rhythm, trying to get as much of Casey’s hand on him as he could. He started stroking harder, and was instantly rewarded when he wrenched a deeper groan from the kid. Casey didn’t know why the sight of this pretty man, the absolute exposure and acceptance of him, twisted his heart in his chest. 

He blinked and shook his head at his own rapt staring. Hell. What he meant to think was if he had a heart, ‘cause he sure as hell didn’t have one when he got here. 

“Yeah, there … thought you’d like it … but then, who doesn’t like a good set of hands, hm?” His voice got throaty as his hand dawdled, nearly coming to a stop. If he kept going, Chuck wouldn’t be paying attention, and he needed the kid’s full concentration for what was coming next. “What else do you like, kid?”

The fact that Casey’s palm was barely scratching his itch any longer made the kid huff in frustration. Looking at him with eyes lost in the darkness, he shifted his gaze down to the ground and pushed some hair out of his face. The way it stayed at a weird angle told Casey his long wavy curls were already damp from exertion. 

If he ever used words like adorable – which he fucking did not – this would be one of those times. 

“Wh-what else?” Chuck repeated. “I don’t really have a lot here to go on, so I think … maybe ….”

“Want to hear you say it.” No point in fondling if he needed him to talk, either, especially when it came to this particular long-legged boy. So Casey let his hand drop to the ground. “Wondered, haven’t you? What you like? Please tell me you’ve thought about it some.” 

“I know that there are things … more things that could happen,” Chuck answered, sounding breathless. “But if you’re waiting, well? It should be obvious, you know.”

“Yeah, it should. So why don’t you say it?” Knowing he would hesitate, Casey shifted on his knees, which brought his lips within inches of the only slightly left hook besides his worth a shit. 

“Say it?”

“Go ahead.” Since the kid seemed to need some incentive, Casey bent forward all the way and let out a long exhalation. “I’d like to … hear what you want.”

“You’re trying to mess with my head,” Chuck blurted, but his cock jumped at the wash of hot breath. “To get me to say things … like that.”

“Like what?” Casey smiled, trailing a hand along the back of his knee, his thigh. Kid was slender, that wasn’t a secret, but his nakedness revealed lean bands of muscle up his legs. They’d wrap around him tight, he bet …. 

When he squeezed into the tender flesh back there, Chuck jolted ahead, enough for a few hard inches to graze Casey’s neck.

“Ah – I didn’t mean –”

“Easy, kid …. Not there.”

“You bastard.” He could see the wheels moving in the Chuck’s head even as his eyebrows scrunched close together. “You did that on purpose.”

Casey looked up, innocent enough. “Tell me.”

“You .. pinched my … and made me – ow! You did it again!”

“That what you meant? Made you rub your pecker against me? You can say it, kid.” 

He tightened that stubborn jaw of his. “I’ve said … it. Just not that way. Maybe you should try the less crude approach.”

“Nothing wrong with my approach, princess.” Casey’s eyes glinted with humor, and as he looked ahead, his large hands firmly on the kid’s hips and framing his cock. “Who’s teaching who here, anyway?” He absently brushed a few fingers over the back of his knees. “Did you forget?”

“It would be a little hard to with your – right there and – ah.”

“Hard, eh?” Leaning in, he rubbed his stubble against Chuck’s lower belly. Inhaled the scent of him as the kid shifted his thighs to brush his face, and God, Chuck was willing to take any kind of friction. “You’d like my mouth there …?” Casey growled against his skin. “Why don’t you say it … what you want.”

He glanced up, saw Chuck had his eyes shut, jaw held taut, breathing shallow. 

“I want what … you like.” 

This from an unsure kid, a statement that took even Casey by surprise. “How do you mean?”

Chuck had to clear the scratchiness from his throat. “What I should do for you if I ever … well, the way you’d like it.” The blush went all the way down his chest, but having a hard cock apparently helped him drop those inhibitions. Good to know. He touched Casey’s shoulder and said, “Can you …?”

Was he serious? Contemplating, Casey forgot about his thumb playing along the kid’s flat belly. “What … I like?”

“That’s what I want you to show me.”

Suddenly Casey was the one who had to shut his eyes and steady himself. Show him? Was he really asking him to connect the words and deeds for him in a bawdy picture show? 

It had never been like this with another man. Chuck was either goddamn oblivious to the suggestion, or the sneakiest little trat who had faked his innocent smile and stuttering all this time. 

But there he stood, arms widespread, bare except for the open shirt, not exactly looking like Jezebel. Casey had to figure that the suggestion was from a curious mind, equally unpretentious and brilliant. 

Maybe the kid was onto something. He could show him.

Now that he had made his decision, Casey dragged his palms down his thighs, heard him intake a breath. “Can you pay attention? You’re are a smart boy, aren’t ya?” Another kiss, then a lick since he was already there. “All that schoolin’ your daddy gave you?”

Shit. Casey wasn’t sure why he brought up daddy when he’s got Chuck’s pants around his ankles and his cock a few inches from his lips. The kid could still get that duck and cover look if he got spooked by his request for an education just now.

Show me.

The truth was – God, he disliked that word – Casey had only done the job from this position a couple of times back in the early days. Found out he preferred to be the receiver, the one looking down at a head of unruly hair and someone mouthing his cock. Shit, yes. But just the sensation against his hand, from base to tip, up and down, built up a ball of tension in his own gut. 

Playing with this kid – the deft movements, the bare skin to bare skin – had Casey wanting to make Chuck see stars, wear that goofy sideways smile for week. The full press of his length and need against him a few minutes ago had nothing on this. Casey gave himself a discreet little pull – better – eased back, and for a moment, his gaze traveled over his rangy, long body, thinking what a cinch it would be just to suck him off without the extra incidentals. 

But fuck, with the kid all show me now, what was the adventure in that? 

This was anything but simple. Despite the head rush, Casey moved back and finally gave in to the impulse. He reached between them to really stroke him now, to run his knuckles along his cock before his hand got the grip. Slid up and down a few times.

“Alright. Listening, kid? I’ll show you what I like, then.”

Chuck was riveted to the ministrations on his skin. “God ….” he said softly, wet his lips as he got into that quirky rhythm of his hips again. “Yes … I’m l-listening.”

“Good. That’s a start.” One sweep up. Another back down. Then he gave the kid’s cock a little squeeze and swept a thumb around that delicate crown. “When you do this … we’ve already been messing around for a while, maybe my hand has been down your pants, or you’re … returning the favor …? So, you’ll need to know a few things.”

“Oh, that’s … shit ….” Chuck whispered, but he hadn’t closed his eyes. They took heed of every stroke. Not even blinking. 

“Yeah, you’re getting it.” Casey was careful to keep his hand moving, but not in a hurry. Didn’t want to end this before he was done impartin’ some knowledge. “So I’ll be wet already. Right there ….” The next trip up, he stilled his hand, except for the pad of his thumb, carefully smearing pre-come around the slit. Got it nice and slick for him. “You’ll be on your knees, looking up with those brown eyes …. And you’ll wanna start by licking some of that … ‘cause you want to, of course.”

“Jesus … ah.” Chuck reared his hips out, made an irritated little sound. “Dammit.”

“Have to watch, cupcake. Eyes down.”

“Asshole,” Chuck mumbled, almost to himself. 

Casey snorted softly. “You knew that already, kid. Yet you still let me do this.” 

Chuck drew his brows down over eyes he wasn’t even aware were sparking with fire. “So you’re telling me I’m an idiot and I should walk away.”

“You’re sure you wanna walk?” 

The kid pursed his lips out as if refusing to answer.

“Really, cupcake?” Casey caressed the tip, getting his thumb wet one more time. He then withdrew the touch, looked up to confirm the kid was undistracted, and licked Chuck’s salty taste off his hand while those brown eyes stayed pinned to him. “How about that?”

“Oh. No … no. W-walking would be bad. Very bad.”

“You’re catching on.” Casey sealed his lips to get all of it, swallowed. “You taste … really sweet, too, pancake.” He closed his hand around his cock, giving him a rub just under the head. When Chuck gasped real nice, he began the strokes again. “No one’s ever told you that before?” 

The kid could barely nod, though Casey already knew the answer. Chuck’s eyes had fallen to half-mast, just squirming his hips to get more hand on him. Anywhere. 

That meant Casey could torment the rim with his thumb. “Sure you’re gonna be able to remember all of this?”   
“God ….” 

“What?” Casey asked, cocking his head.

“Yes, keep … just keep doing that.” 

Casey smiled and put a strong hand to his hip, and pressed him back to the fence. “Only if you stay there … or you won’t get the whole lesson, eh?”

“Casey, I …. Now you’re going to make me suffer?” 

“Suffering have anything to do with this, kid?”

Chuck pushed a hand through his hair, eyeing him with some wariness. But after a minute, he settled his bare ass back against the fence, and he closed his eyes. “I told you … I’m listening.”

“You’re a good at it, too, boy.” He could see that Chuck had made a face at the word boy, but Casey reached up and ran his palms over the kid’s upper body. Ostensibly it was get Chuck to catch his breath, massaging here and there, thoughtfully feeling him. It worked. Instead of letting out a remark, Chuck’s point caught in his throat, his charged body stilled.

He couldn’t blame Chuck for his lack of restraint. The game he was playing, a sort of pleasure by delicious torture, fucked with his own mind and body as hard as the kid's. Maybe later, he'd wonder why he kept doing it.

“Of course, since you’re a … good boy … I’m gonna want you to start slow,” Casey told him, curling his fingers around him, starting up those lazy even tugs. “But you? Heh. You’re gonna want to lick me by now, get your mouth on me … so that’s what you’ll do next ….right, kid?”

“I should’ve started this … differently. Maybe not with a question like that,” Chuck said. Casey could see his hands tighten into fists, telling him his need was just as desperate. “I’m not very good at – oh. Oh shit ….”

Casey exhaled, slid his hand down Chuck’s girth, and let the smooth rounded crown touch his lips. He rubbed his cheek along it. Then, kissed. 

“Here’s one for you kid. I’m gonna want you to shut up and relax now.”

“Hey, that’s not – gah.”

That shut him up. 

He grunted huskily and leaned in, licking a few achy inches. The flesh was soft, like the tender area of his neck, yet somehow hard and tight, too. He parted his lips, opened up further around him. Just letting the tip feel the heat of his mouth. His tongue touched the slit, licked the salty tang of what had collected at the tip, and gave it a good swish. 

The point Chuck was making a minute ago became a low whine that sounded nothing like a grievance. “There … you should w-warn me or something … Mmnn.” 

The moan was appreciative enough for Casey to want to do it again. Twirled his tongue over the curved surface, swirling it around a few times. He repeated the swish, just along the ridge, not lower yet. But gliding over that cock and hearing the chorus was one the deepest pleasures he has had in a damn long time. Like he had never heard those sounds before. Like it was all he needed.

At the next loop, Casey pulled back, his hand keeping the steady rhythm. He looked up to see Chuck had let his head fall back, eyes closed, pointed at the darkened sky. 

Well, that was no fun.

“Nuh-uh, kid,” Casey murmured, pausing to suckle then lightly nip the skin of his lower belly, letting his cock drop from hand. “How are you gonna know what I want if you’re not taking notice?” 

Chuck made an inarticulate sound with a curse thrown in. “You … you’re enjoying this too much,” he said, lowering his gaze until he met Casey’s eyes. He wavered on his feet a bit as if blood was rushing back to his head. Took a deep breath. “Okay …. Tell me … what you would want next.”

A light smile crossed Casey’s face and he had to stare. The open shirt flitted up every now and then in the evening breeze, giving him peeks of bare skin. The kid probably had no clue of his handsomeness at that exact moment, arms resting along the fence, almost naked in every way. With those dark plaintive eyes watching him, Casey nuzzled at the nearest hipbone, then moved down to bite lightly into the firm flesh of his upper thigh.

“I was right about you. Knew you’d be a quick learner.” Reaching up, Casey grabbed one of Chuck’s hands off the rail and held it under his. Fingers interweaving, palms sliding one against the other, Casey guided him downwards. Up and down with the kid’s own hand touching himself. Maybe Casey wanted to unwind him, but the pulse in Chuck’s hand made his own nerves coil like a knot of barbed wire. 

“But I thought you were – oh, this is ….” The kid’s lips parted and the rest was lost. 

“I want to watch you.”

“I can’t –” Humiliated at touching himself with an audience, Chuck pulled his hand back.

“Don’t like that, eh?” No harm. He’d have to come back to that later. Skimming a hand down his chest, all the way, Casey let his fingers circle his cock again. He brushed his lips over the firm skin, tracing the ridge with his tongue, eliciting a low groan. “Next … you’re gonna want to get it wet.” 

Chuck swallowed. “You’ll – Case – I can’t … Oh God ….”

His knees pressing in, leaning forward, Casey brought his lips within a whisker of his cock, and brushed his cheek against his leg. With the slant of his head like this, the curve of Chuck’s length was right there, long and achy, nearly grazing his nose. 

So of course, being gentlemanly – like the kid was accustomed to – he had to wet it for him. 

“Yeah. Slippery,” Casey said, his voice rough. “Like this.” He turned his head abruptly and nipped his thigh. Even a stupid little virgin like the kid would expect Casey to just sink down straight on him by now, which meant he wasn’t going to do that – not just yet.

Rather, he slid his cheek closer, still enjoying the side view, and opening up, cupped his mouth along the girth of his dick. He shook off the sense he had been here before, just like this – Jesus Christ, impossible. But he’d do it, on his knees for this kid. He did, too. The whole thing was effortless, letting Chuck get a good look at the glistening moisture his mouth left along his shaft. Watching him put his tongue to him, sucking and licking. 

Because there was no doubt Chuck was watching. Intently, too, based upon the way his stomach clenched and his breathing picked up. Casey wasn’t exactly in the position to confirm it, not with the long deliberate sweeps he gave, but he was sure he felt the kid’s eyes burning into the top of his head. 

Up to the tip, a tongue swish, working up a little more saliva, and Casey drew back down the side, his mouth staying perfectly molded and tight along his cock. 

Working up saliva was hardly a chore. Casey sure as hell wouldn’t admit it out loud, but his mouth watered, rolling over his skin, experimenting with the smooth texture. He curled his tongue around the sensitive groove, then under the edge of the crown. When he found a spot that made the kid give him a fuckload of movement, he swiped his tongue along the tiny susceptible flesh there. 

“Mmmm.” 

It was a good noise to hear, so Casey did it one more time. 

“That’s … oh God oh God ….” Chuck was actually trying to jerk his hips and slide his cock across Casey’s parted lips. “Damn that is not fair ….” 

Casey decided to give him a few rides up and down before bringing up his hands to shove him back again. “Stay just like that.”

“Ah! I’d like to point out … that’s not f-fair either!”

“Not yet ….” Casey’s firm fingers circled him, his thumb stroking that taut vein the beneath the crown. He rubbed it back and forth, but in reality, he was waiting for Chuck’s fine tremors to stop. “I thought this was about showing you what I wanted. Is that right, kid?”

“Y-yes.” It wouldn’t take much more. Chuck’s face was already slick with sweat, his pupils totally shot. Lowering his head, he watched Casey’s hand take the path his mouth had a minute ago. Up, down … sliding. That’s the thing he wanted. If God was watching, Casey’d give thanks for a fist this large, able to really work him. Warm breath saturated the pink crown, and the kid tensed. 

Yeah. That’s definitely it. 

“I … I’m still – gah – you can keep going.”

“Now that you’re … or let’s say I’m,” and he stopped to breath in, run his thumb over the slit, “nice and wet … all hard and ready for you … what I’m gonna want you to do next … is take me deep into the back of your throat.” 

Under the caress of his thumb, spiraling around the ridge, the kid writhed but didn’t fight it. Casey saw the deep flush of pleasure rise on Chuck’s cheeks. 

“I think you’ll be able to do that, eh?”

“Casey ….” Chuck closed his eyes and his head tipped back back, his gangly body stretched out. The tautness of the arm gripping the rail intrigued him, the way his shy lover’s muscles rippled. The kid jerked, kept jerking, and Casey, feeling benevolent, didn’t stop him that time. Face it, by now the kid’s head was full of dirty insinuation, and with a sure and steady hand on his cock, Casey knew he was only trying to retain his sanity. 

On his knees before him, Casey leaned in, his tongue caressing the crown, and finally gave in to the one urge he really wanted. Wanted to take him into his mouth, his body, completely without restraint.

So that had to be next. 

Chuck’s reaction was instant, and gratifying. He jerked, his ass cheeks squeezing together, thrusting forward and trying to get as much as Casey’s mouth on his cock as he could. “Holy … Christ. Casey …. So good.”

That’s all he needed. It only made Casey take him down with more purpose. Sucking him was so uncomplicated, and yet not the simplest physical feat to cover most of him with his mouth. That was trickier, because Casey knew even from the kid’s bulge in his undershorts that he had been bestowed with way more than he knew what to do with. Seemed unfair not to do something about it.

Teaching would be a snap because, well, hell. Casey couldn’t help but draw his cheeks in and suck harder, enjoying the sweet slide of his shaft, giving him a rumbly moan around his erection. He had this done to him before – a few times – and he knew from experience that the vibration would make the kid lose a handful of that precious control. 

“Mmnh. You … you should really keep doing that.” Just as Casey tested his own limits, Chuck made a cut-off sound in his throat. “Please … don’t stop.”

The beggin’ was not part of the instruction, but a mighty nice touch anyway. Now that the drill was almost over – the kid was so close to orgasm he was going to have a meltdown – he should tell Chuck how much he appreciated it. 

Casey pulled back, letting his cock slide out of his mouth. He raised his gaze to see a tiny trickle of sweat on Chuck’s cheek. A pair of wild eyes stared down.

“What … what’re you – oh, hell.”

“Easy, kid.” Immediately, Chuck sucked in a breath as Casey replaced his mouth with his hand. He began unhurriedly jerking him off. Any other time, he’d be fucking the man stupid by now. But with Chuck, taking his time seemed to wear well on both of them. It fit. 

“Jesus,” Chuck managed, his hips beginning to thrust reflexively at each stroke. “O-kay … okay, then. That’s … oh, that’s good too.”

“Good. Because we weren’t quite done with the class, school boy.” Though it was the same motion with his hand he’d be giving if he were fucking him, so at least the kid knew how the final exam will go. “Ready to hear it?”

“Ah. Do I … do I get to torture you, too? Is that what you want?”

“This feel like torture, cupcake?” Casey held him, making sure he had his eyes aimed down. Then he gave a little lick and slipped his mouth around the head. It was a good thing the kid had the fence. It was handy when his knees stopped holding him up. One more dip, and Casey pulled back. “Hard to argue when your cock is this rock-hard.” 

Chuck couldn’t help but clench the rail at this and keep his mouth shut. 

“What else I want?” Casey’s other hand dropped to cup Chuck’s balls, his thumb rubbing each, giving them a roll or two in his palm. Tender-like, since the kid teetered dangerously on the edge. “This. That feel good, kid?” 

“… fuck … oh.”

Casey smirked, and he never let up with the even strokes. “Yeah, I like that, too,” he told him. “You can have a dirty mouth for me, eh, cupcake?” 

“N-no … I don’t –”

Casey grunted. “When you’re down on your knees … rockin’ into me? When you have my cock in your mouth, and your own dick throbbing? I’m gonna thread my fingers through your hair. Twist a handful.” Letting go of his balls, he drew a fingertip to his mouth, wet it, and brought it down. Nudged his legs a little further apart. “Don’t worry, kid. It won’t hurt.”

“You … that’s my –”

“Yeah, I know what it is.” Casey kept it up, one fingertip tracing his hole, testing. It felt too damn good to stop. “This is what you’re not gonna do, got that?”

“Ho-hold on … why is that –”

“Not explaining it now,” Casey muttered. “When I’m ready, it’s not gonna be too gentle and girly. You’ll like that, won’t ya?”

“God … can we – oh shit – maybe we should … go back to what you were doing? You know, w-without the –” 

“Heh. Listen up. And when you figure it out – you’re smart, you will – you’ll want it right then. You’ll want me to nudge your head down ….” One finger, just one, dipped in, a knuckle up his tight little asshole. “I’ll fuck your mouth for you … you’ll make that little hungry sound, your own dick so Goddamn hard – just by sucking me off.”

“You … you should really stop talking now.” Chuck’s eyes drifted shut, totally immersed in it. Still with the arguing, but did the kid even know he was bucking into his other hand? Even as Casey circled him, thumb caressing beneath the head, sliding up and down. 

Since his finger was conveniently right there, Casey kept testing it, then traced the rim. He wondered if he was going to be the first man to cross that sacred boundary. Then another push, and Chuck made a little nngm sound. But he didn’t stop arching his hips.

Acquiescence never felt so sweet between five meaty fingers. 

“You’ll want to,” Casey went on. “Suck me, that is. Even if your knees feel sore … you been on them so long ….”

“I’m … oh – not going to make it.”

That was kind of the point, pancake. “And when your jaw aches from sucking me, all you’re gonna want to do … is keep going.” The whole experience of wanting something that badly, however, was impossible to explain without living it, so he stopped there. That would be later, too.

Chuck bit down on his bottom lip, watching Casey’s hand through lidded eyes. “God, you are trying to kill me, aren’t you?”

“And when you think you’re gonna burst, I’ll push you down on the bed, take your pure little ass for you … just keep giving you what you want.” He couldn’t help it, that fingertip mighta dipped in, up to the second knuckle. Chuck surprised the hell out of Casey by pushing down. “Until you can’t make words, just noises – kinda like now, hm? Your heart’ll be thundering through your chest ….”

“Jesus … you have to … please ….”

“Yeah?” More begging. The kid’s reaction pierced to his chest. Casey pumped him, his other hand sliding up to grip his buttock.

And then because he wanted to, he brought his mouth close, sank down on his cock. 

“That’s it … just like that,” Chuck breathed. “Holy Christ.” 

Nudging his knees farther apart, Casey took in every inch of that cock that he could and used his hand to grip what he couldn’t. He came down, again. And again. Fast, then slowing, making Chuck feel the movement of his tongue, under the broad ridge of the head, looping around ….

“Casey, I –” Chuck rocked against the fence. Casey felt the trembling of his thighs and he looked up as the kid’s eyes fluttered closed. “This is –”

It occurred to Casey that Chuck might need some urging. He licked up his dick one more time and let it fall out with a hot wet slurp. “Ready to come for me, kid?” Jesus. Casey’s breath was just as ragged. “Let’s see what you have.” That was all he could manage before sinking down on him again. 

Then Chuck’s balls convulsed, beyond the point of no return. The kid’s body tensed, tightening like a coil, and Casey felt a stream hit his tongue, then another while the kid groaned out his climax. 

The power of making a cautious, tentative man like this one blow past the bullshit in his mind and just come in his mouth made him dizzy. Casey stilled, his entire focus on Chuck’s cock, letting him thrust sluggishly now while he filled him. It was a primitive attempt that wasn’t to end it and get away, only to get more of him. And for a million reasons he would deny, he wanted more of him. More of the man he held to be his. 

All his.

Didn’t seem like the time to puzzle over that. Besides, the kid was just a damn distraction to fill his time here, wasn’t he?

It took a long time, until the languid thrusts rolled to a halt. Without looking up, Casey swallowed the thick taste of him, thinking how much of the kid he had inside him now. Rising to his feet, he brushed himself off and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. 

It gave him a moment to take in the sight in front of him. Nothing prettier than that man right now. Standing here, real and human. Giving himself to him. Casey liked the way his shirt drifted open, lightly blowing against his body, stretching across his broad shoulders. The kid had sagged back with his head down, eyes still squelched shut, inhaling hard. The feverish energy gradually drained from him. Casey wondered if he had left marks, and maybe he did in a place he couldn’t see.

When Casey moved in, he threaded fingers into that dark hair, and used the grip to gently tip his head up. A pair of brown sex-glazed eyes stared back at him. “If you die here, this is a good a place as any to leave the body, I reckon.” 

“Asshole,” Chuck managed under his breath. 

Casey smiled and his hand fell to the back of his neck. “I’m going to kiss you now.” Cupping his jaw, he bent and kissed him, this one kind of dreamy and warm, a few lazy pushes of his tongue until he felt a faint quiver travel through the kid. When he pulled back, he said coolly, “You taste … good.”

Even in the navy blue dusk, he could see the kid’s cheeks redden. “It doesn’t seem fair.” His voice faltered.

“What’s not fair?”

“You just –” Looking down didn’t disguise his embarrassment. “You know, did things and I can … do something for you. If you want me to.” Struggling with himself, he finally put his hand on Casey’s lower belly, and then getting braver, let it slide down over the front of his pants and cup the large swell. “Oh. Shit.”

Casey grinned and pushed his hips up against his, making his back land against the fence. He put both hands on the rail on either side of him, and gave him another nice drag, gentle, since the kid was bare-assed. “Listen kid. Your cock was just in my mouth. I think it’s okay to put your hand there.” He grinned even more when Chuck ducked but smiled. “I have just the thing.”

“What?” he asked, and actually had the balls to clamp his fingers over the outline of his bulge. “You want to … tell me?”

“Dinner,” Casey replied, stepping back. “It’s warming in the stove. That chicken pie and fried cakes the girl left? The one who wants to hop your bones? Damn, I’m starving.” 

“Hop my –?” Chuck’s eyes went wide with confusion, then mortification. “I told you. We’re just friends. Her family took me under their wing when I got here.”

“Yeah? Trust me. She also wants under your sheets.”

“Sarah would never – well, do that.”

Casey snorted, because he was way off. It wasn’t that she wouldn’t try, but the sassy gal lacked a certain anatomical correctness that would get her exactly nowhere with the kid. 

The silly little shit still didn’t know she probably loved him. Maybe thought nobody could. 

Scowling at himself for that idea, Casey slid a large palm around his wrist and pulled, getting him to start walking since the kid insisted on wasting time by glaring at him. “Let’s go. I said there’s food, so move your skinny ass. And you’re going to eat all of it.” 

“You could just say, let’s go or anything really. I prefer that to the dragging you seem to be fond of – hey.” The kid tried to pull back, intending to dig his heels in. “Besides, I’m not really hungry.”

“You’ll eat.” Casey emphasized his brusque command with another tug. He didn’t even bother to turn around, since the hold on his wrist kept Chuck stumbling behind him. 

“But, why –”

“’Cause you’re going to need your energy, brown eyes,” he muttered under his breath. 

-x-End On the Wings of Grace Chapter Twelve-x-


	13. Chapter Thirteen

-x-

That’s how this would go for now. Just two men sitting down to dinner. 

It seemed like the way to put some distance between a … sunset that still had Chuck breathing hard, while avoiding the whole messy thought process that the kid couldn’t deal with in the first place. Because he could only guess that in about ten seconds, one of those long looks of his would sweep over his body, appraising him like a penciled map and the kid utterly lost as to which trail to take. 

That’s right. He was walking away for now. On top of that, it eliminated the possibility of a clumsy but firm hand job up against the fence. This hard-on wasn’t meant to be wasted on a quick and dirty slide and groping. He had a perfectly capable right hand and could do that for himself any damn time. 

The wide open truth was this: tonight, he needed more. 

When he looked down to where the kid was still fumbling with the buttons of his fly, Casey had to at least concede that kid had nice long fingers – the way he could cup his balls tight, slide his hand over the smooth curve – so the sacrifice tasted like metal in the back of his throat. 

Pushing that thought away, Casey watched the kid’s hands now working up his shirt, shaking fingers that Casey thought went well with a flustered half smile. It was a look that held a little shame, and Casey told himself he shouldn’t be angry about that.

What, kid? Because the urge he tried to hide all day unraveled that easily? 

Easy. It had been, too. Like knowing how to pick a locked box and getting it right the first time. Yeah, that good. Hell, he could’ve turned him around, kicked the kid’s pants off all the way down, used his thighs to spread his knees apart from behind. Next time, though. That’s when it would happen. He’d be gripping the fence, a few fingers in him, a kiss on the back of his neck ….

“That’s not helping,” Chuck said quickly, smoothing his hair. 

Casey straightened. “What?”

“That. The way you’re staring at me?” The kid looked bewildered. Maybe something to do with the fact he had to tuck his dick away with another man watching. “Was that okay? I mean, for me it was –” A breath was indrawn between his teeth. “…. Really … nice, but –”

“Tell me you don’t plan on talking about this.”

“Are you … out of your mind? Look, what just happened here is something two people should at least discuss.” He stopped to wave an unsure hand between them. “What it means? And why you even did that –”

“You missed a button.”

“I – what?” Chuck tipped his chin down, giving his pants and shirt and cursory glance. “I did not.”

Good. That worked. 

Casey ignored his pout and folded his arms over his chest. “If you’re done making yourself proper, we have dinner waiting in the stove.” He softened his voice, since the kid could still get spooked by gruffness. Be logical. The kid understands the obvious. “You need to get some food in you. Been out here all day, haven’t you?” 

The practical suggestion seemed to settle him down a bit. “Dinner?” Chuck glanced up, looking past him towards the cabin, his eyes more aware. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to stick you with everything today – the wash, making our supper….”

An apology. To him. Son of a bitch. That’s his problem, right there. No one would apologize after what he had put him through this week. This kid was too sweet to be living. Way too sweet to be living out here without someone to show him the unpredictable terrain. 

“Never mind about the wash.” Casey registered that his unintentional staring at the most curious man he had ever met would only make the kid want to talk. With this boy, he had to direct him. Keep his mind away from playing back the images that had to be shooting off like fireworks against his brain. “Let’s go.”

The head tip in the direction of the house should’ve been enough to get him moving. With anyone else, it was. 

But after one step, finally letting go of the fence, Chuck stopped cold. 

“Wait.” There was a pull as the kid’s hand came up to latch onto his coat, slipping down to his sleeve when Casey kept walking. Then he did it again, and it was strong enough to stop him. “Don’t go yet. There’s one more thing.” 

Casey immediately felt the back of his neck prickle. Whatever was coming, he wasn’t going to like it. He should’ve known that the kid would be like this. And it wasn’t even a fuck, for God sakes. Just sucking cock. 

“Listen, kid,” Casey said bluntly, eyes drifting down to the hand clenched into his coat. “I know what’s going through that head of yours. You want to know why I came out here, why I got you off, is that it?"

Chuck’s fingers dug in. “Well, now that you mention it, hell yes, and you owe me that –”

“Beholden to one man, kid,” Casey muttered. “And you’re not him.”

“– but that’s not the reason – did you say one man? Who is that?”

“Relative of mine. Mr. None of Your Fucking Business.” At Chuck’s hurt look, Casey heaved a breath. “There’s nothing to tell. This is the part where you let go of my coat and move your feet.” Casey tugged back, his face hardening when the kid held on. “Food’s ready and we’re hungry. The rest of this, you can tumble around later.”

Chuck tensed. “You are so damn ….”

“What?” Casey said, giving him a sharp look that hinted not to finish that.

“Frustrating!” the kid finished anyway, giving him a sour look.

“I am, eh?” Casey turned, twisting the hold so that now he had the kid by that loose shirt of his. “Walk,” he ordered, but he was stopped dead by the lost expression on Chuck’s face. 

“This is crazy. Just … stop. That’s not the one thing I was talking about. I promise.” Chuck shoulders sagged, and Casey did not want to hear that it was guilt holding them down. “Please. Let me say it, okay?”

“Christ.” Casey let his hand fall. Somehow, the please had the same effect as being thrown against a wall. It pissed him off that one word out of this kid’s mouth held that kind of power. But goddammit, it did. He stepped in closer, enjoying the small flinch it earned. “Just tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

Chuck went still. As he hesitated, Casey’s eyes flicked over him. The way he was breathing, his long body leaning against the fence, the tightening of his muscles. Holy God, there was no arguing that he was a beautiful kid, but that had nothing to do with deciding to hear him out.

“I’ve been here a long time,” Chuck began softly. 

“Yeah. I got that part.” Casey leaned on the rail next to him, looked out past the meadow, the night sounds swelling around them. “This place. You’ve been here over a year. Hiding … something.”

“I never said I that,” Chuck said, and slumped.

“So what about it?”

How the kid managed to stand there and look even more like an abandoned puppy was a mystery. But there it was. All of his self-doubt making him rock back on his heels, uncomfortable with whatever he was trying to spit out. “By myself. Almost always. There … are some things I haven’t done.”

Casey’s chest began to tighten, something welling up, something he managed to stomp down. Instead he let out a snort. “I got that too. Remember, I was there during that part.”

The kid pushed a hand through his hair and looked skyward, eyes pained. “I’m … I’m not talking about that.”

“Then what is it? And I should let you know, you have three seconds to get this out.”

“You’re not going to like it,” Chuck said, and reached out to touch his coat again. “It’s nothing really, but you have to … let me do it.”

Casey squinted at him, ignoring the pool of heat in his belly. “Let you? Okay, that’s it. I’ve heard more than I can take. Move it.” His hand found the edge of the kid’s sleeve, but the tricky little bastard backed up half a step, and the fabric sailed between his fingers. “Kid, I have to warn you, I’ve had about enough –”

“Not until – oh, and if at all possible, I’d appreciate it if you could just trust me enough to stand there. One more thing.” Chuck gripped the hem of his shirt, which he hadn’t bothered to tuck in, all that emotion balled up in his fists. “You can’t laugh. That’s my rule.”

Casey sauntered in a step, filling the space Chuck had put between them. “You making the rules now, cupcake?”

The kid faced him fully, only a few inches from him gaze. Staring enough to make Casey almost want to look away, what with his dark eyes coursing over his mouth, lashes sweeping down. Wavering, Chuck leaned into him, putting a hand up along the side of his face. 

“You can tease me later about this all you want, and I won’t care. But being … gone and away from everyone … isn’t easy. Ellie, especially. Her more than anyone ….”

Not knowing what to expect, Casey felt his muscles tense. “What are you getting at?”

Chuck moved an arm around his shoulder, the other dropping around his waist. Before Casey could draw back, or drive him into the dirt, or think, the kid pulled him in by wrapping his arms around him, holding him close, unyielding. His head landed gently on Casey’s shoulder, and he turned to face Casey’s ear, his nose brushing his hair, everything settling on firm muscle. 

“Haven’t held anyone … or been held,” he breathed against the curve of Casey’s neck. “Since, well, forever. I just want to … feel that again.” 

Casey’s first instinct was to flinch, but the surprisingly strong arms held, circling his back. Hell, he could’ve pushed him, if he wanted to. Could’ve tossed him to the ground and kicked him, or picked him up by the scrawny neck and lugged him into the cabin.

But not thrusting him back, he let him. Do it, the unimaginable. Let the kid press his gawky yet wiry muscular body to him, tying it to his, knowing it was all his tonight. With one hug, Chuck let him know he’d found a place here if he wanted it.

Oh, fucking hell.

Closing his eyes, Casey inhaled the kid’s scent, mingling with the pear soap and the creek, trying to make this moment something completely different. Not with a damn helpless kid breathing warm air on his neck. Making him shiver. With Chuck’s fingers curled into Casey’s shirt, his chest hauled up hard to his, he was suddenly aware of how close every part of them could be. 

It scared the living shit out of him. 

He should really open his eyes and not get smothered in the temporary moment, the distraction of it, stop feeling it at all. 

If it weren’t for those skinny arms around him, squeezing him tight. 

-x-

“Here.” Casey shoved one of the plates in front of the kid and sat down across from him at the small table. “Let’s see if that female on the horse can cook worth a –”

“I know you have something against given names,” Chuck broke in, “but she has one, too. It’s Sarah.”

“Got a point there, city boy. Let’s see if the broad knows her way around the kitchen.” Piling some on his plate, Casey gave the meat a cautious sniff. “Seeing that she’s trying to entice you with some decent home cookin’, I’m holding out some hope.”

“Entice?”

Casey had to smile a little ruefully at the futility of it. Only because he knew that pretty little thing was never going to have the opportunity to sprawl next to him, or give the kind of satisfaction he craved. It should be obvious to her that the things the kid noticed weren’t soft or feminine. Or a decent chicken pie. 

No, Chuck had an attraction to things that were going to get him in trouble. And Casey didn’t know why he was thinking this way, but it was true for both of them.

 

“You will have to break down eventually, kid, and let her know the truth. If she wants to catch the right man, she may want to think about dropping her line in another pond.” Casey squinted at him. “Missing the right kind of bait for her hook if she keeps after you.”

“Thanks for the amusing analogy, really, but I already told you, she visits because she’s my friend.”

Casey chuckled around the bite in his mouth, but left it at that. 

Chuck got the hint not to push it. Besides, something else was picking away at his thoughts, palpable in the air the between them. Casey watched as the kid forked up a small piece of chicken, looked at it, and put the fork down. 

Maybe he needed to be told how annoying that was. Or reminded of the little fact Casey had ordered him to eat up.

“Pancake?” Casey said between bites.

The kid started. “What? Oh, sorry. I was … oh.” A dirty look flashed over his face when he realized he had answered to that. “You know, after what just happened … out there? Maybe you could call me Chuck.”

“Chuck.” Casey pretended to think about it while he carved away at a slice of meat, then gave him a meaningful once over from across the table. “What’s your middle name?”

“Irving,” the kid said, making himself cringe.

“Charles Irving,” Casey repeated, infusing his voice with a little derision. “Seems like pancake would be welcomed relief, eh?”

The kid put his fork down, scowling. “Did you actually have something you wanted to say, or did you just want to torment me?”

What? Casey shoveled in a forkful, trying to quell his annoyance. No doubt about it, the boy was sensitive, all girly-like when it came to his innards. Brown eyes here seemed to have no appreciation for Casey’s brand of flirting. His expectations weren’t sky high for the kid to suddenly want to ride his lap – though after working off that nervous energy, he wouldn’t balk at the idea – but some gratitude should be in order. 

“Here’s the thing, pancake,” Casey said. “I can see you’re doing exactly what you shouldn’t be doing.”

“Oh, thanks.” Chuck frowned and went back to pushing food around on his plate. “Why don’t you tell me what I should be doing?”

Casey’s gaze dropped, passing down Chuck’s chest and tense shoulders. Did he ever listen to even half the shit he said? The witty answers to that would be endless, and involve pushing aside the plates and making use of the table they were eating on. But he sensed Chuck’s knotted up insides would have to be addressed without the provocation. 

So wisely, Casey bit back a smile. “You’ve got that look.”

“What look? I have looks?”

“Yeah, you have looks. Hell, everybody does.” 

Chuck stopped in the middle of a bite to raise a brow at him. “Everybody?”

“Except for me, of course.”

“Of course,” Chuck said, nodding while he chewed. 

Smartass, but at least he was eating. “You think I can’t tell, kid? Think after spending days watching your face show every thought, I can’t pick up on it?” 

At that revelation, Chuck jerked in surprise, but underneath the irritation was inquisitiveness. “What do I do … exactly?”

“If I tell you, you’ll stop doing it,” Casey pointed out.

“Stop doing what?”

“Just get it over with. I know you have something to say.” 

“Really? How?” Chuck wrinkled his nose. “Because I didn’t think wolves could pick up on the dialect or even nuances of the human species.”

Score one for the kid. He should enjoy it for the next half minute or so. 

“Nuances. Heh.” Casey sat back and put his knife down. “How about this. When you have something you have to get off your chest, you fiddle with your damn fingers –” 

“I do not,” Chuck sputtered, looking down and hastily putting one hand under the table. 

“– or run ‘em through that mop of hair of yours –”

The kid turned red and flattened his hair where he had just ruffled it. 

“Heh. Think about it this way, kid,” Casey went on in a flat tone. “No matter how much I don’t want to hear it – and trust me, I don’t – you just have to say it. So spit it out and get this over with.” 

“This … this isn’t something that you just blurt, you know. It takes –”

“Fine, let me just take the guess work out of this for you.” Taking one of the bowls, Casey heaped a few potatoes on his plate before he tipped it to offer the kid a scoop. “Want more?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Casey scooped a few on his plate anyway and pointed to them. “Eat,” he said.

“I’m waiting for your brilliant hypothesis.”

Casey grunted. “You’re trying to find a way to tell me that you may not be the … worldly man you appear to be.” Eyeing the kid, he had to pause there for a sarcastic eye roll, because, well, look at him. “And this is your way of telling me to take it easy when I’m with you. Is that it? Did I hit on all your salient points, princess?” 

Chuck looked up from where he was pushing the potatoes around on his plate. “That wasn’t it,” he said, faltering. “I’m …. I know what just happened out there –” 

“God, I sure as hell hope so –”

“– and okay, maybe I’ve never … had a man – well, do that, but it doesn’t mean –”

“You do know you’re gonna eat that, right?” Casey told him as he watched the potatoes get squished by the tines. 

Chuck lifted his head to point a glare at him. “Okay, you want to know? Here it is. What you said outside? It’s not true. I’m not a virgin.”

At least he had said it before Casey had attempted to swallow. That would’ve just lodged the bite of chicken into his windpipe, and put a bit of a dark cloud over what could be a damn fine evening. 

Not that Chuck’s confession could be considered surprising – he was, after all, a prettified kid, and with a decent haircut and some meat on his bones could be considered irresistible. In fact, as he looked him directly in the eye, a decade-old memory fluttered by, one that had Casey feeling the warmth of another distant, almost forgotten young man. He was under the employ of Madame Meadows at the Sagebrush Ranch. Situated on the outskirts of St. Louis, he had visited the place when he needed a quick romp with no strings. Not often, but enough.

Sagebrush Ranch. Never a bigger misnomer than that, since the wares sold on the premises had less than nothing to do with scrappy bushes or ranching. Madame catered to a wider variety of clientele than the usual, meaning she kept a few handsome kids like this one under her wing. There was one with dark eyes, long-legged, lean …. 

Casey took a quick drink of water, keeping his eyes on the kid’s face. On second thought, he did have to wonder how someone this awkward ever got laid. Look at him, those red cheeks. Uttered the word virgin and can’t even make eye contact. 

Admittedly, Casey’s curiosity was piqued. “So what you want to tell me is that you are worldly and all, eh?”

A quick slant told him he had hit home. Chuck’s eyes raked over him as he pushed the plate away. “You made an insinuation. When we were outside? I heard you. I … I wanted you to know you were wrong.” It took a second for the kid to pull his next words together. He spent it by nervously running a hand down the front of his shirt. “It’s something that I did, okay?”

“Well, look who outran the race for longest living virgin,” Casey cut in. “Pass the butter, will ya?” But when he reflected on it for a second or two, he set down his knife and pointed his narrow gaze at the kid. “Hold on. ‘Something that you did’?” 

Chuck’s face reflected a grimace. “Yes. So?” 

“Please, tell me you don’t mean something that you did one time?” Casey rubbed a hand down the scruff on his chin, giving him an assessing look. “As in once.”

Chuck didn’t answer, unless Casey counted picking up his knife and suddenly attacking the potatoes like a starving man.

“I’ll be damned,” Casey said, forcing himself to hold back a chuckle of disbelief. “Maybe I was wrong, kid, because I sure as hell didn’t peg you as the type for a one-night roll in the sheets.” 

“A one night …?” 

“Roll in the sheets.” Casey arched a brow when he got a blank look. “You know, fucking a stranger?” 

Yeah, so, maybe that was to get a reaction. But he couldn’t resist. Not with the kid’s brows scrunched up like two wrestling caterpillars. 

“Not … not that’s in any of your damn business, but he wasn’t a stranger.” Chuck cleared his throat. “He was my college roommate.”

Casey looked down at the cup in his hand, not taking kindly to the lack of strong whiskey. These types of womanish recollections always went down better with a burning chaser. “Your roommate couldn’t get it up for you more than once, brown eyes? Is that it? So you ditched him and moved on to … bigger things?” 

It slowly descended upon him, and when it did, the kid hunched his shoulders, mortally offended. He went back to pushing food around his plate with his fork. “Forget I said anything, okay?”

“Not getting out of it that easily, kid. You brought it up.” Casey put an elbow on the table and gave a beckoning signal with his hand. “Let’s hear the end of it.”

At first, Chuck pressed his lips together, but whatever he saw in Casey’s face, he recognized he wasn’t getting away that easily. “Well. If that’s what you want.” Casey almost had to smile when the kid pushed a hand through his messy waves. “It was our last night there. It was late. We … went down to the Charles one more time ... and sat on the bank.”

Casey snorted. “Have a thing for that, do ya?”

Startled at the similarity, Chuck flushed and tried to hide it by looking away. “It was nothing like today,” he answered stiffly. “For starters, I wasn’t stripped down and thrown in.” 

A grin crossed Casey’s face. “It was more fun my way, wasn’t it?”

“Hah. You’re enjoying this. I can tell.”

“The only way I’d enjoy it more is if you tell me your Romeo brought a bottle of booze with him.”

The clang of Chuck’s fork hitting the plate made both of them jump. “Why do you say that?” Chuck asked, stammering once he realized he had Casey’s full attention. “That doesn’t mean … anything.” 

Casey stared at him. The wry grin faded to what he hoped clearly said, ‘you are a complete dumb shit’. “Kid? Next time you’re convincing me you’re not that naïve, let’s just remember this, eh? Save us a hell of a lot of talking later.”

“I’m done with the story, by the way.”

“Like hell you are.” For a reason even Casey didn’t understand, he had to hear the end of it. In a heartbeat, he caught Chuck’s shirt front and fastened a hand under his chin, forcing his head up. Those brown eyes clouded up, affronted by being obligated to meet his gaze. 

“Hey, keep your hands –”

“I told you. Look at me. Then what?” 

“I … I don’t have to –” His head jerked abruptly, attempting to break the eye contact. 

“Nuh-uh.” Casey ended that by clamping down on his chin, not enough to hurt, just to keep his focus. “Just tell it.”

“God, you are a bastard,” Chuck managed without moving his jaw. “Do you ever let anything go?”

“No.” Casey gave him a bored-to-death look, but it also dared him to keep fighting. “‘Cause I’m not moving my hand until you –”

“Okay … okay. There’s nothing more to tell, though,” he said. “I don’t remember … much of it. Can you let go now?”

Casey shook his head, searching for the lie that would be impossible to hide. But it wasn’t there. He really didn’t remember. 

“Let me get all this straight, kid,” he said, brushing his thumb absently over his cheek before he let go. “Some dickhead who wouldn’t sleep with you the entire time you were in school decided to get you drunk on the last night. Then, he took your virgin ass out for a roll in the hay –”

“Grass,” Chuck broke in, ducking his head to avoid the look. “It was grass, strictly speaking.” 

“– sort of as at little graduation present – for himself.” Casey tore off a piece of bread without taking his eyes from Chuck’s face. “So does this mean you’re not even sure if the little prick managed to –”

“Of course I’m … sure. Geez.” Chuck threw his hands up. “And if you try that again – grabbing me? It doesn’t matter because I’m not telling you anything else. Just trust me, I know what happened.”

Casey grunted, slightly pissed at the challenge the kid had thrown down. No one challenged him like that and got away with it. Right then, he ignored the little voice in his head that added, until now anyway.

“Stow it,” he countered. “If I wanted to hear the rest, I’d wrestle your skinny ass to the floor and hold you down until you spouted it out like a little girl.” With a look of warning that he wasn’t kidding, Casey forked up a bite of chicken. “Don’t need to hear more about this puke beag, anyway.”

“He was my friend. And though I’m not certain what you said right then – when you slip into that brogue of yours? – the context was sufficient.” Chuck picked up his cup and took a sip. “He’s not what you think.”

“This guy isn't a shote who smoutched ya?”

“Uh, no.” Chuck sighed. “And while we’re ending this conversation, you can go ahead and hold back on anything related to –”

“Your prowess, princess?”

Chuck sent him a narrow look, somewhat familiar. What the hell. The kid was getting better at it with every passing day. “Not everyone can be you, can they?” 

Sarcasm was improving at a good rate, too. “Making presumptions about me, eh?”

“Are you going to tell me differently?”

“Are you ever going to pass the butter?” 

“I see,” Chuck drawled, though his expression said he didn’t. “You may think I’m the most naïve person you’ve met – and maybe I am. But I’m smarter than you think.”

Since he had already figured out the kid was indeed damn smart, Casey didn’t argue the point. “The butter, kid. Unless you have any other confessions you need to get off your chest? And by that, I mean you sure as hell better keep them to yourself.”

“Wow. You’re eloquence is noted.” Chuck blinked at him and passed the dish. “I guess I’m done now.”

“Good. Glad we got all that out of the way.” 

“You know, I think I’m done with dinner, too,” the kid insisted, quickly putting down the knife he had been rolling between his fingers. “I’ll get the plates –”

As he reached forward, Casey stopped him by curling his fingers around his wrist. “Maybe you should take your plate, since I’m still eating, hm?”

“Or… that too. Sorry. I wasn’t ….” 

Chuck began to climb to his feet, but Casey’s hold tightened. “So that was your big secret?” he wondered aloud.

He felt Chuck’s arm tense under his palm. “I should be smart enough not to ask, but what are you referring to?”

“What he did.”

“He?” 

Casey shrugged and nodded for him to take his seat again. When the kid begrudgingly plopped down, Casey pushed his plate back in front of him. “The asshole,” he said evenly. “The one who raped you.”

“Are you – what?” The kid turned a shade of green, and choked. He seemed to be focused on the floor and not seeing a damn thing. “Rape? You think that he – how could you even say –”

“Here, kid. I’ll help you out by letting you hear it again.” Casey’s eyes frosted over. He had no idea why the story triggered a reaction, but he wanted to punch something. Hard. “First, he took you to a remote place –”

“It was just the river bank – okay, so yes, we were alone –”

“Then he purposely got you drunk.” 

“It … it wasn’t his fault. I happen to have a low tolerance for–”

“After that, the bastard took your clothes off and you don’t remember what happened next, but you’re fairly certain he managed to get his wanker in the right hole.” 

Chuck gaped. “Wank – again, what?” 

“Did I miss something here, or does that about sum it up?” 

“You … that’s not ….” The chair scraped against the floor when the kid rose. He dropped his hand to his side, fisted it once, twice. Scooping up his plate and cup, Casey could hear him begin to work the water pump at the basin. 

Even with his back turned, the hurt was there. It poured off him like a stream down the side of a mountain, snaking and tripping past rocks and fallen logs. Looking past his shoulder at the kid, Casey heaved a breath and climbed out of his chair. He strolled up to the basin, coming to a halt directly behind him. 

“Kid?” Casey said, his voice barely a sound. He took the plate from Chuck’s hand, ostensibly before he broke it, and his slid his forearm around his hips. “Listen. What I said right then. Maybe you shouldn’t have to hear it like that.” Casey’s palm skimmed in a slow burn as it crossed over his belly, not going under the shirt just yet. “Maybe there was more to it.”

“It was complicated.”

“So, that’s why you’re cranky. You’re little fling was complicated. I get it.” 

Hell, they were living it. The difference was that on the grassy bank, Casey had given the kid one last out to stop him, and he didn’t take it. No sense explaining that now.

Lowering his head, he pushed his nose into those dark curls, and breathed in. “Have I mentioned how much I don’t want to have this conversation?” 

The kid didn’t jump or pull back as Casey had thought he might. Rather, Chuck half-turned, and let go of the handle of the pump. “Agreed.” Wiping his hands on his pants, he then cleared his throat. “And I thought … you weren’t done …?”

Good boy, Casey almost muttered, until he remembered the kid was already on edge. Pressing his chest to his back, Casey’s hand slid around the side of the kid’s neck, cupping it, holding him still. “Yeah. Want something else now.” Wanted more than simple sustenance. Wanted to turn him around, tear his clothes from him, right now ….

“What … is it?” 

God, Casey didn’t think he could be any harder, but he was, just from the way the kid lowered his lashes, took in a steadying breath. Not fighting him.

“Just this.” Sliding his arm further around Chuck’s waist, Casey let his hand drift up his shirt, over his flat belly. It found a resting place, low. His other hand gently held his neck, and he kissed his nape. Kid doesn’t know how warm he is. How he feels. He kissed him again, and when he heard a tiny groan, Casey brought his lips over the bare skin around his collar, dropping smooth warm kisses until his mouth brushed his ear. “You wanted to get my attention tonight, didn’t you, brown eyes?” he rumbled. “You got it.”

“Not … not quite in that way.” 

“Hm?” Casey didn’t bother looking up. He was too busy teasing the curve of his neck, finding a spot that made the kid tip his head to the side. Wanted more.

“By telling you things that I’ve never told anyone. Not to mention – oh – humiliating myself.”

Ah, shit. Time to get off that topic. Now determined, Casey ducked his head and swept his tongue lightly under his ear, teasing, making Chuck suck in a breath. Smiling, he then trailed his mouth over chocolate tendrils to his earlobe. “Just stop thinking for once,” he murmured. 

“I’m not built that way.”

Casey smirked against the back of his head. “Yeah, and this is how I’m built.” With his hips firmly against Chuck’s denim-covered ass, he let the kid feel his arousal. And yeah, he was a royal ass for that. He was past caring. “I’m going upstairs now. I want you to follow me …. That’s what you want, isn’t it, kid?” He bent his head, pressing his lips to Chuck’s throat, then across his cheekbone. “To come up with me?”

Chuck swallowed heavily. Casey knew because he felt it. 

“You’re … trembling. Still afraid?”

“You … you could crush me like a twig,” Chuck said. “If you decided to.” He just stood still, except for fidgeting with the cup he finally set down. “I should be afraid of you.” 

Casey brought his hands down to the kid’s slender hips, circling his fingers over them. Chuck pushed back, and this got him a muscular thigh to press against him. “Feel that? That feel like hurt?” 

“Oh, God.” Chuck kept his eyes shut, but his backside moved slightly again, giving Casey a delicious drag of fabric and pressure over his rock hard cock. “You’re not helping your point right now.” One of his hands drifted over Casey’s, clutching it, as if he sought to steady himself. Or feel the warmth of them, or press back into the front of his pants again ….

Oh, yeah … like that. 

“Get the lantern,” Casey suggested, nodding towards the kerosene lamp on the table. “Then follow me.”

“Lantern?” With that one statement, every muscle in the kid’s body snapped straight. He jerked his head towards the window. “Oh, no….” 

Casey pulled back to look at him, puzzled by the sudden panic on his face. “What?”

“I – oh, crap. I left the other one lit. Up in the loft of the barn.”

They turned and went to the window facing the barn. Half expecting to see it engulfed in flames, each man let out a breath of relief. Casey didn’t thank God often, maybe ever, but he did then when he saw there was nothing but a quiet inky night beyond the window pane. 

“Jesus, kid.” Casey pivoted around to face him. “Trying to kill Vic in a fire? The loft? What the hell were you doing up there anyway?”

“I’m sorry.” The kid shook his head and backed away from him. “If anything would’ve happened, it would’ve been my fault. I had planned to go back and get it. Honest. But after I went … outside, I got … well, distracted.”

“You got more than a distraction, kid,” Casey uttered under his breath. 

It was worth it, toying with him like that, just to see the soft blush wash over his cheeks. “I – I should go get it.” Chuck slid around him and took his coat from the peg near the door. Drawing a hand past his collar, he raked a few fingers through the brown waves over his ear. A place that had felt so warm under the soft touch of Casey’s lips there only a minute ago. “I need to lock down the barn for the night. But when I get back? It’s … well … are you ….”

“Don’t worry, pancake.” Casey was already occupied with cleaning up, but he looked over at him and nodded, a gesture that told him to speed it up. “I am going to remind you where we left off.”

-x-

“Ow. You bit me.” At the feel of tiny teeth on his finger, Casey dropped the piece of chicken and yanked his hand back. “Damn cat.” He picked up another and held it out a little more carefully this time. “Here. Take it. But that’s the end of it.” 

Now that the striped feline – was it Buddy the kid called him? – had what he was looking for, he carried it over by the hearth, making quick work of the scrap in front of the fire Casey had started. 

Casey scrubbed the back of his neck and pushed his chair away so that he could keep one eye on the door. Force of habit. When he got up a minute later to feed a log on the fire, he couldn’t stop himself from catching a glimpse out the window into the dark night. He looked for any movement, maybe the kerosene lamp swinging from his hand as the kid made his way across the yard. 

Still nothing, which was exactly the same as two minutes ago when he checked. 

He walked over to the fire. “You like it here, eh, cat?” he said. Casey just shook his head because he was only a cat, so he could say what he couldn’t say to Chuck. “Well, in three days’ time, you can have it all back, exactly the way I found it.”

That had to be the plan now. The kid could have his life back then. Packaged away, isolated, if that’s the way he liked it. He’d probably be safe, for a while anyway.

Casey huffed. 

Ten minutes had passed. Patience gone, he took his hat off the peg near the door and pulled on his coat. He strode out onto the porch, listened to the night for a second or two. Nothing but crickets, a bullfrog down at the creek. Then Casey closed the door, the wood hitting the latch behind him.

Almost everything the way he found it, but not quite.

-x-

Casey stood inside the barn, a few strides from the door. He had been careful enough to close it with barely a snick or drag of rusty hinges. As soon as it swung shut behind him, a soft creaking noise made him look up, or about a dozen feet up to be more exact, to the ladder that led to an opening in the ceiling. A loft that he had barely taken notice of until this very moment.

Now, wasn’t that a sight. 

The kid had his boots on one of the middle rungs as he climbed down, holding a kerosene lantern in one hand and gripping the ladder with the other. His back was to him, and it was obvious to Casey he hadn’t heard the barn door open on his hinges.

“Going somewhere, brown eyes?” 

“Jesus,” Chuck swore under breath, whirling around to quickly to face him. Lucky for the kid the ladder was bolted down at the top or that move would have sent him spilling to the floor. It wobbled, making the kid look up, but he got his bearings quick enough to give him an aggravated look. “Going somewhere? As if you would let that happen? Wait. Unless the status of the hostage situation has altered?” 

Casey brushed off the slight scorn in the kid’s voice, not willing to deal with that question. “What are you doing up there?”

“Why do you have to do that? Sneaking up on me? Do you want me to fall and break my neck?”

“Hm,” Casey said, his eyebrows drawing down and he turned his head slightly, still watching him. 

Chuck shifted and almost lost his footing. “What – ah …. Do you mind explaining why you’re looking at me like that?”

“Yeah. I mind.” Just like he minded that the kid had turned edgy, not able to look him straight in the eye. A bead of sweat trickled down his pale temple, to his cheek, and from the way Chuck’s body reacted, it was more than just being startled by the barn door swinging open. 

It was something … else.

The kid did not want him up there. 

Keeping his eyes on him, Casey felt prickles of heat move across his skin, reminding him he was still a man on the run. A fugitive who couldn’t let his guard down for anyone. Sure, he trusted the kid, but watching him whither under a simple yet quietly threatening stare, he knew the little twerp didn’t expect him here. Whatever he had been doing, important enough to make Chuck’s shaky fingers betray him, was something the he didn’t want Casey to find. 

Another rule for the kid to live by, he guessed. John Casey didn’t back down. And he hated secrets that weren’t his.

“You’re a little jumpy tonight.” 

“J-jumpy? Wh-why would you think that?”

Casey strode in a few more steps, close enough to the ladder that for once, he had to really look up to meet the kid’s eyes. “Because one of the lessons I’ve learned in my line of business, kid, is reading people. And for some reason, something’s got you … jittery. More than your usual babbling and handwringing.” 

“I’m not jittery,” Chuck argued. “Can you move, please? I have to get down, and maybe you didn’t notice, but you’re blocking me.”

“Oh, I noticed,” Casey replied, putting one of his hands along the ladder’s rail. “I also don’t give a shit.” He looked up, as calm and composed as Chuck was flustered. “You’re hiding something, aren’t you, kid?”

“Hide?” Chuck asked, looking down quickly. “I … don’t have anything to hide.” 

“You know, you haven’t left me a choice here. I’m going to have to move you myself.” As Casey took off his holster and set it on a barrel, he had to fight a grin. Defiance, eh? With another man, the ladder would be tipped over on the ground by now. 

But on this kid … he liked it. He admired his spunkiness, even when it was directed at him. 

Casey rested a boot on the bottom rung and, looking up, swept him with a dismissive once over. “Relax, button. You know that’s not gonna work. You can’t knock me over.”

“I’m … I’m only going to ask nicely one more time.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Fine.” Chuck glanced furtively up the ladder and back to the ground, assessing how trapped he was. “Please move. See? That was nice. Now, I’m coming down.”

“No, you’re not.”

“But that was the deal!”

“We didn’t deal, goddess,” Casey answered blandly. “I just wanted to hear you say it.” 

“You can’t just make up the rules the way you –”

“I can’t? Heh.” From the first rung, Casey could only reach the kid’s legs, but in case he had any ideas, he took hold of him right above Chuck’s knee. “Move it. Back up the ladder. I’ve decide that I want to see what’s up there.”

“You may think, after what just happened, you have certain rights, but I can’t let you go up there.”

“Let? Get out of the way.”

“That’s not possible.” Chuck tried to block him with his foot. “You’ve barged into every place in my life in the past week. Not this one.”

Casey struggled between laughing at the overt obstinance that was going to last about another five seconds, or getting pissed. At the moment, pissed was winning. 

Why was that kid so goddamn stubborn? Casey let his eyes drift up his long legs, his hips, the swell of his ass under the jeans, and briefly contemplated just grabbing him by that sweet little thing and pulling him down. He wouldn’t let go this time, either. 

Except, now he had to know. What was Chuck hiding up there? 

At Chuck’s tenacious look, Casey’s last ounce of patience broke. It wasn’t anger that put his feet on the bottom rung. No, it was determination, because no one told him no when he set his mind to something.

“Move out of the way, brown eyes. I’m coming up,” Casey told him, already climbing. 

“You can’t.” One of his hands landed on Casey’s shoulder as he took another step. “Okay, I’m coming down!”

“No you’re not. Too late for that – turn around.” Casey moved up a rung, and now Chuck’s body was trapped between his arms. “You can keep your hand there if you like,” he added, nodding to where the kid’s hand had clamped to his waist, under his coat. “But you know you can’t move me, no matter how hard you try.”

“Okay. You win. I’ll … tell you what it is, but we’re going back down.”

He could play this game for now. Casey leaned in, his muscular body pressed hard to his, feeling the kid tighten beneath him. “Tell me.”

“It’s … just a workshop.” A wheedling smile flashed. “All righty, let’s go.”

“A workshop?”

Chuck’s dark eyes averted to the ground, telling Casey how badly he wanted to be down there, and not stuck here. “Yes, that’s all. Now can we –”

“I’ve come this far. I think I wanna see it.”

“No.” 

Casey reached up a rung and clamped a hand down on his. “You can save your willfulness for later, when it’ll actually come in handy –”

“Hm? What does that me –”

“– but right now, I’m going up. And you are too.” Without waiting for the protest, he took hold of the kid’s jacket, a handful of his collar, and began climbing. “Take a step or get dragged.”

“Let go!” Chuck called, trying to wrench a shoulder from his grip.

Casey realized something. That was real fear under his hand. And that only meant Casey’s grip doubled in its intensity.

“Okay, drag. Let’s see it.” 

“I don’t really need – ah, stop that. I – we’re going to fall!”

“Not gonna drop you, cupcake,” Casey answered. “Just wanna see what’s up there.”

Chuck finally figured out a few things about his struggling. One, it would only make the ladder wobble back and forth more than it was, and two, it wouldn’t do him a damn bit of good. 

Being the first one to the top, Casey yanked the kid up by the collar until they both stood in the loft. Once he looked around the room, the larger man noticed that unlike any other barn loft he had been in, he didn’t have to duck his head. The room was at least twenty feet long, just as wide, with a peaked ceiling another five feet over his head.

Along one wall, amidst the tools and lumber, was an object Casey couldn’t fathom. 

It took him a moment to process it, comprehending that the kid not only had a hidden workshop that he had kept a secret, but he had kept that secret from a man who could see through him.

His countenance stayed rigid, but it had nothing on the young man next to him. After taking it in from end to end, he turned to the kid to watch his reaction. Casey had to admit – he had never met a soul just lost in his world like this one.

The kid finally shifted his stance, angling around to him. “Are you … going to say anything?”

Casey shook his head, and then stepped forward one more step, forgetting he was still dragging the kid along. “Son of a bitch,” he swore softly as his fingers released his coat. “Do you mind telling me, brown eyes … what the hell I’m looking at?”

-x-End Wings of Grace Chapter Thirteen-x-


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

-x-

Casey had always been a person who liked plain speaking. Words weren’t meant to be the frothy layer that sat on top and added nothing but fizz. They were the hard ale underneath.

So he waited.

There was a brief pause before Chuck inched forward. “This is a violation of my privacy, you know,” he pointed out. When Casey slanted a look, he saw the kid straightening his collar, glowery-like, for the affront to his shirt. “Here’s something else to think about. Disagreements can be resolved without getting physical. You should try it sometime.”

Casey made a guttural noise. Hadn’t even come close to violatin’ his privacy, thanks to having to chase him to the barn. “I asked what it is. And cupcake, I don’t wanna resort to dragging your ass again, so make it quick. Hate waiting,” he added to himself.

“Really.” Chuck turned to stare at him. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Talk.”

The kid finally got serious. “It’s – it’s not really what it is that’s important.” Avoiding Casey’s eyes, he paused to rub the back of his neck, and then said warily, “It’s what it will do. Someday, I hope.”

If Casey wanted the night to end the way he was beginning to envision, he really shouldn’t shake him. No matter how badly he wanted to.

“Will do? Okay, why don’t you start there?”

“Alright, then.” Still fidgeting uncomfortably, Chuck finally tucked his hands in his pockets. “One day, this machine … well, it’s going to fly.”

Hell, that confirmed it. The kid was far crazier than he thought – and the starting point for measuring his lunacy wasn’t so fucking great in the first place.

Casey frowned, rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Like a bird, eh? This brainchild here.”

Realization of Casey’s cynicism came in stages. The kid seemed blindly hopeful at first, but the doubt and ridicule on the larger man’s face must’ve hit him, given that as his dark eyes swept over Casey, they immediately clouded up.

“I can see you’re one of the skeptics,” Chuck said between stiff lips. A kicked puppy hiding under a porch had nothing on that look. He lowered his eyes and reached for a shabby tarp. “You can head down the ladder now. I’m going to cover this –”

“Not yet, kid.” Taking the blanket from him, Casey glanced to a nearby table littered with hand tools and scraps of wood. “You’re going to tell me what you’re doing with this.”

“I built it.”

“To fly? That’s your plan, princess?” Casey shook his head and snorted. “’Cause I’ve seen pictures of a dirigible, and I gotta tell you. That gadget looks nothing like a balloon.”

“It’s not a balloon. It’s … a flying machine. Or if you’d like, you can think of it as a glider, or because of the design of the wings, some call it a biplane –”

“Or just damn foolishness.” It was at that point Casey couldn’t hold in the belly laugh any longer. “I can call it that too – and it sure as hell seems to fit.”

Chuck’s brows drew down. “If I wanted to be told I’m an idiot with wild ideas, I could’ve stayed home,” he said icily. He covered the hurt by turning away and making another grab for the tarp. “Can you do me a favor and just pretend you didn’t see any of – hey, give me that.”

“You’re not getting off that easy, kid.” To prove his point, Casey tucked the cover under his forearm. He nodded in the direction of the glider, taking a moment to get an eyeful of the kid’s folly. “Let’s hear it.”

Because the flying machine – heh – had to be the strangest sight he could recollect. A pair of long flat wings covered in canvas stretched out at each side, oblong and uniform and nothing like a bird’s wings. That was his first mistake, right there. If that wasn’t enough, there were two sets of those crazy wings, layered one on top of the other, braced together with short trusses that crisscrossed every few feet. It had a longer platform that ran down the middle, intersecting the wings. Casey was momentarily reminded of a cross lying flat – and if Chuck thought for one minute he was gonna fly that, well, it seemed as if God would at least plan it that way, a pure boy like this getting ready to die on one.

When he looked over, he saw Chuck glance at the blanket under Casey’s arm, as if he considered taking it from him. He could try, Casey reckoned. But instead Chuck picked up a scrap of canvass, rolling it around in his fingers. “I guess you could say it’s similar to a glider,” he started tentatively. “It is in the way that the pilot – the person flying it? – will do it lying down on his stomach.”

“Flying it,” Casey repeated, his expression making Chuck recoil. “That thing.”

Looking back at Casey, he put a hand on the lower wing in the center, where the sections crossed the body of it. “Right here. I figured this position would let him steer the rudder … and still be able to use the pull wires to –”

“Fuck me running,” Casey said under his breath, and laughed. He hadn’t meant to have it come out exactly like that, but some things couldn’t be helped. “You’re serious. You think that damn piece of lumber and fabric is going to fly?”

“No, as a matter of a fact, I don’t,” Chuck said, and now his voice sounded testy.

“Jesus, at least now you’re thinking straight.” Casey reached out to touch one of the wings. “Had me thinking at first that you – the hell.” The last was muttered when his hand was batted away sharply. “What the fu –”

“Please don’t touch it.” The kid mustered up a placating smile that faded to reverence. “Every truss and guide wire has been measured and recorded for the next simulation. If you move it, I’ll have to –”

“Thought you just said this wasn’t gonna fly.” Out of the kid’s line of sight, he rubbed his abused fingers. Cupcake over there had a little venom in his girly slap when the time called for it. “Why does it matter to you?”

“I said this particular glider wasn’t going to fly.” Chuck’s gaze wandered from the outstretched wings to what appeared to be a tail section. He picked up a leather-bound notebook from the table and met Casey’s questioning gaze. “It’s a model. I record all the specifications for the tests here. Applying a new theory – maybe a wind tunnel or a more powerful engine? – could take dozens of practice attempts.”

Casey snorted. “Dozens? Should take only one look in the mirror to see you don’t have feathers and a pair of wings sprouting out of your shoulders.” He crossed behind him, sliding his hand down the middle of the kid’s back, over a rounded buttock, and gave him a proprietary squeeze. “I hate to point out the obvious, kid –”

“– ah! Really, because you seem to enjoy it –”

“– but considering the number of times I’ve seen you naked in the past week, I’d be the first to know if you had any extra appendages.”

“Funny. But I knew this was going to happen.” Chuck folded his arms over his chest. “I didn’t think you’d understand this. The good news is this should be enough ammunition for you to poke fun at me – for the next few – whoa.” He stopped and wrinkled his nose. “Did you say the past week? But that … it was only at the creek today when you saw – wait. You were watching me … undressing upstairs? All week?”

Casey shrugged. “First person I’ve ever met who doesn’t have a single scar,” he said. “You do have a tiny birthmark on your –”

“Okay. Stop there. Please.” Chuck reached forward to take the blanket, only to have Casey biff his hand away. “Ow. How did we get from my experimental advances in powered flight using a combustion engine –”

“An engine. In the sky. Heh.”

“– to the tiny mark on my left butt cheek –”

“Almost like a heart, isn’t it kid?” Casey pretended to think long and hard for a moment. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. Decent folks might wonder why I happen to know.”

“Please stop.” Chuck closed his eyes and waved a hand at him. “I know nothing offends you, but thanks for not finishing what you’re getting ready to say.”

Smiling, Casey tugged on his hand and pulled him in closer. “I was only sayin’, if you were endowed with anything extraneous from our Maker – I would know. They’re not hidden anywhere.”

“Fine.” Chuck said it defensively. “I can see you have no appreciation for hearing about aeronautical axis control or Lilienthal’s advances in construction –”

“Lil - eh, I’m beginning to think you’re serious. That this isn’t a joke.”

A scowl crossed Chuck’s face as he reached for the tarp still tucked under Casey’s arm. “Forget you saw anything. And you can let go now.” The kid tugged again and gave him a withering look when it didn’t budge. “Please? Can I have the blanket? I’m just going to cover it.”

“Not getting it back just yet, brown eyes.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a control freak?

Casey grunted his opinion, and flicking a look at the model. “If it’s not gonna fly, you built that … to do what exactly?”

“It’s a prototype.”

“Big word from a skinny boy.”

“I can see you’re impressed. Maybe I should skip my theory on a rotary engine using compressed air?”

“Why don’t you skip to the part that doesn’t make me want to poke a stick in my eye?”

“Okay, then,” Chuck smoothed his shirt and stepped back, leaned his hip against the table. “First, I’m not mad at you, really. I know from personal experience – my entire life – that not everyone wants to hear about stabilization methods or –”

“Got a stick?”

“Um, no?”

“Then I would pick up the pace, kid.”

“Patience really isn’t your thing is it,” Chuck noted.

Casey grunted one more time, striding up to him until their shoulders brushed. At the surprise touch, Chuck turned those dark eyes on him, reminding Casey of a reluctant horse running toward a scary jump. Second-guessing how far to go, how high to climb. How much he could safely reveal.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, the kid shifted his gaze to the contraption, and Casey saw his eyes fill with a distant spark. Like they were holding pieces of a dream together by string, delicate, taut, where something could be lost if even a small noise snapped him out of it.

He didn’t want to pull him back just yet. He liked the bit of fire there.

“I … I decided I could build prototypes in less than half the time and still run through accurate simulations – with the correct ratio of weight to mass, of course.”

“Of course,” Casey said, biting back a grin. “I was just gonna suggest that. Beat me to it.”

It was as if the kid didn’t even hear his attempt at humor. “Oh, it also helped with one other problem.” Chuck stepped away from him, suddenly embarrassed by something, and waved a hand. “Come here. I’ll show you.”

Going along with it, Casey strolled up behind him as the kid unlatched the loft door and swung it open to the cool night air. He looked out across the dark rolling meadow, then noticed Chuck looking down. Straight down. One of the discarded trusses lay on the ground, about twenty feet below them.

Instinctively, Casey clamped a hand on Chuck’s arm and held on. “Easy, cupcake. Head first would put a damper on the evening, don’t ya think?”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Chuck remarked dryly. His eyebrows rose when the steadying hand drifted down to his hip, a protective touch. Now that he had him here, close, Casey gently steered his hips nearer, until the swell in his pants might’ve accidently nudged the kid on his hip bone. “Oh.” Chuck cleared his throat. “Though I’m not sure if you’re more worried about me, or your –”

“My what?”

“Nothing.” Chuck just shook his head and smiled. The blush, however, answered for him. “Are you going to let me finish?”

“Listening.” Yet he wondered why he had to know. Or why he was standing there, letting himself get swept into Chuck’s wide-eyed trance.

But just the sight of that smile told every dream he’d ever had. Perhaps for a moment or two, Casey didn’t mind the view into it.

Casey had that once. For some reason, it reminded him of a reckless challenge he once accepted, just to see how far he could go. What he was capable of.

When he was twenty, he’d been dared to swim out two hundred yards to a dinghy that had somehow slipped from its rope. He kept going until the undercurrent took hold of him. Someone yelled out, tried to get him to turn around, right before he felt himself being taken beneath the surface. But he fought it. He was a strong swimmer, goddammit, and nothing had ever forced him under. Leaving home. Teaching himself to survive. So he kept moving arms over head, slashing into the water.

By the time he lifted a hand out of the choppy waves and grabbed the edge of the boat, the whole thing had left him half dead, dazed and disoriented. He didn’t know why he had kept going. Why he let himself get drawn in to the unbearable moment.

Just like that, he looked at Chuck. The vision was propelled by that lopsided grin on the kid’s face, the shy confidence in his expression and gestures. It wasn’t anything like the swirling water of the gulf, but it was exactly like being drawn under into the depths. Giving him a sensation he was suddenly home.

Hell, what kind of foolishness –

“This should answer your question,” Chuck was saying. “I didn’t think of this when I found the loft – to use for my workshop? You see, if I built the plane to actual size, well ….” He cast his eyes to the ground twenty feet below and glanced at Casey. “It doesn’t quite fit through the width of the opening.”

The larger man folded his arms and had to bite down on his lip. “Found out the hard way, eh, genius?”

“Be nice.” Chuck ducked his head and playfully shoulder-bumped him. “Anyway. Take one last good look at my workshop. I don’t let anyone up here … not that it’s been an issue since there isn’t anyone else.”

Casey did look around the loft – the crowded yet oddly organized work tables, notebooks and drawings – until something caught his eye.

He did a double take.

Make it a triple.

“Is that ..?” Casey squinted, and then touched Chuck in the small of his back. “A bed?”

Not only was it a bed, it was a good solid bed. The blue and white striped ticking mattress, stuffed plump, was piled with a few Indian blankets and feather pillows. Looked welcoming after a grueling day, and it’d be even a longer night.

Right now, Casey intended to find out if it was as comfortable as it looked.

-x-

“Kid?” Standing next to him, he smiled devilishly and slipped a finger into one of Chuck’s belt loops, using it to pull him close. Something like arousal darkened his eyes. “Did you hear anything I said?”

“I was just, uh, fixing the tarp.” The grin of his made Chuck’s stomach flutter. He quickly covered his tingling curiosity of the meaning behind Casey’s expression by smoothing the oilcloth carefully over the model. When he had it straightened over the wings, the kid looked up at him and smiled, despite the ball of nerves galloping in his belly. Maybe it wasn’t nerves. Maybe it was the smile, the bed Casey had noticed, the thought of what had happened outside – and the rush of blood to his cock.

Oh, it was definitely that last one.

“Nice way to ignore the question,” Casey replied in his teasing, husky voice, and he reached up to toy with a few curls over Chuck’s collar. “You have a flying machine – and a bed up here?”

“N-no, it’s not a bed.” Playing it cool, Chuck tried not to lean into that warm touch at his neck. “It’s a prototype of another glider I’ve been working on. I wanted to know if something that looks exactly like a bed could fly if I paint wings on it and shove it out the loft doors – hey, that’s my shirt – yes, okay, it’s a bed!”

“Better,” Casey observed, taking his time to release and flex the hand that had given him a little shake. “See, kid, that’s all I wanted. A straight answer.”

“Noted.” Annoyed with yet more manhandling, Chuck took a second to flatten his collar. “No aeronautical humor after dinner,” he said dryly.

“Or ever,” Casey corrected, strolling over to the bed to take a seat. “Hm. Not bad.”

“There’s a perfectly sensible explanation.” Though Chuck wanted to slap his own forehead a few dozen times at what that had to look like. In his defense, he had forgotten what it was like to see his workshop, his world, through the eyes of a stranger.

Stranger? The kid realized he needed a new label for the larger- than-life man who had usurped his life. Willingly surrendering to an act of passion meant he didn’t qualify as a stranger any longer, though Chuck had no clue what territory he had moved into now. Housemate? Lover?

Besides Bryce – did he even count? – he’d never had one of those.

Or a man on his bed.

Chuck blinked at him. Then he took a step closer. Tucked under the rafters, he had picked out a place for it along one of the walls, opposite the workbench. A small table with a kerosene lamp sat next to it, covered in notebooks, loose pages, and pencils. Several diamond-patterned blankets – red, orange, and grey Navaho weave, thick and nubby ones – were spread on top of it.

It was something else that had drawn all of Chuck’s attention.

Leaning back against the wall, long legs hanging over the side of the bed, Casey crossed his ankles and smirked up at him. “I don’t think we got to the part of the story where you tell me why it’s here.”

“I … sleep up here – a lot actually, from the spring until fall. I like it better than the cabin. More like … home I guess.” While he spoke, Chuck absently picked up a leftover piece of a truss and fiddled with it. “Um, I can see you’re getting comfortable over there –”

“You were in the middle of explainin’ something, brown eyes.”

“Hm?” Chuck felt a flush when it dawned on him that he should look at Casey in the eyes. Not the legs. God, he had long legs. “Some nights, I’m here late. You know, working … maybe making a small adjustment that could – well, I lose track of time.”

“So, you’re saying you do this often?” Disbelief, as usual, Chuck thought, watching as Casey dragged a hand through his hair. “You come up here and build – that?”

“Uh, every day actually,” Chuck told him. “Most people don’t find it comfortable – a place like this. Or they wonder why I’m wasting my time on something that isn’t possible –”

“Yeah, they might wonder that.” Casey reclined back on his elbows, and instead of getting up, he looked like he was settling in. “Why a man wants to spend his life like this …. Jesus. I don’t get it.”

Chuck frowned. “It’s home to me. And someday, my life is going to be more than being alone out here.”

“Most peculiar home I’ve seen,” Casey grumbled. He took his time searching Chuck’s face, and after a few seconds, nodded towards the end of the bed. “You did have one idea going for you, genius.”

Chuck’s brows wrinkled. “You are not getting ready to say –”

“The bed, kid.” Casey reached a hand behind his head and adjusted one of the blankets into a pillow. “Yeah. Comfortable.” To demonstrate, he shrugged his shoulders and sunk into the mattress a little. “Hell, this is better than the one I’ve been breaking my back on all week upstairs in your cabin.”

“I didn’t realize you had such lofty standards,” Chuck said. He crossed his arms over his chest and took a few steps towards the bed. Yes, he was a bit uneasy, going headlong into something new and scary, but he had to grin at the sight of a very handsome, mile-long man sprawled out on his bed. “Next time, when you storm the compound – take over my home? I’ll make sure you’ve been set up accordingly with your station in life.”

“Smart ass.” Casey was silent for a moment as his gaze traveled over the kid from head to toe in a way that made his chest tighten. Warmth spread to his face.

“You don’t look like you’re ready to leave,” Chuck said, since witty dialogue was not his forte in these types of situations. He wasn’t sure what was.

Casey rolled his eyes and reached out, patted the blanket next to his leg. “C’mere.” The low voice alone was capable of pulling him in. “You should try it out.”

“I – I have. Many times,” Chuck answered, feeling trickles of heat move across his skin. He couldn’t explain why the invitation to come to the bed, let the awkwardness melt away, and learn what it meant to join a man was still a bit bewildering. Hell, frightening – but it didn’t stop him from moving towards the edge of the mattress. Just another step or two.

“Bet you haven’t felt it like this,” Casey countered coolly. It seemed deliberate, as if he was making him want to watch, the way Casey stretched his feet out and began to kick his boots off. One hit the floor with a loud plunk, jarring Chuck enough to realize he was staring. The other one fell to the floor next to it, and Casey then toed off his socks.

“I didn’t peg you as a ‘no boots in the house’ kind of guy,” Chuck blurted. “Or workshop, as the case may –”

“Christ,” Casey ground out under his breath. “Sure you’re not a virgin?”

“Um, I think we covered –”

“So are you gonna stand there all night?” Casey cut in, contemplating him with those sea-blue eyes. When Chuck didn’t move, he sat up, now looking somewhat perturbed, and patted the blanket again. “Plenty of room, pancake.”

The wicked glimmer in his eyes stirred the kid in places he usually kept hidden. It also made his feet shuffle ahead before his brain got too involved. “I seem to remember – wait, are you – hey –!”

But the pair of strong calves that had suddenly shot out and wrapped around his knees were not about to let go. “I said come here.” Securing him between his shins, Casey locked his ankles, which Chuck figured were as staunch as a bear trap. “Try it out.”

The kid inclined his head, surveying his predicament – crap, he has strong calves! –and forced himself not to squirm. “You do realize that those are my legs.”

“Mine now.” In case there was a question, Casey flexed his thighs, tugging him in closer.

“You should’ve warned me you’re, well, possessive to go along with that controlling streak.”

“Heh. Just the way you like it.” As Casey peered up at him placidly, those sturdy legs tightened and slid up to grasp Chuck’s thighs. The kid had no choice but to stumble forward, and that was when Casey locked his knees around his waist and pulled him in even closer. “So … you like this place? Up here in your loft? Your secret hideaway?”

“Y-yes,” Chuck stammered, and now he did squirm. Quite obviously, though, Casey had no idea how strong his legs were, because it didn’t do a lick of good. “I don’t know what that has to do with anything. We didn’t come up here to discuss my secret existence, did we? Now can you – ah – kindly move your –”

“Yeah, then why did we come up here?” Casey gave him a lazy grin and hung on even as Chuck wriggled his hips, trying to loosen the hold around his middle.

“I thought it was the lantern … but – uh, do you always trap your prey before you … well, you know.” With a huff, Chuck gave up for now. “Is there anything else potentially terrifying I should know about your mating techniques?”

“That would spoil all the fun,” Casey said, but the legs around him did relax enough for the kid to take a breath. “Next time, come and sit when I ask you to.”

“Ask?” Chuck raised a brow in mock accusation. Now that he didn’t have a pair of legs wrapped as tightly around him, his bravery returned. “I guess I still have some work to do – adapting to the local vernacular? Because was that asking?”

Casey grunted. “And just so you know the difference, kid, this isn’t.”

Before Chuck could back up, Casey grabbed a fistful of his shirt, pulling him down to the bed. No doubt satisfied that Chuck didn’t yelp or try to free himself, his grip curled in, his thumb sliding back and forth over the hollow of the kid’s neck. Chuck knew he was a strong man, but hauling him up like this let him feel the steel length of Casey from chest to knees. And now that he had him seated, Casey yanked him in harder for a demanding kiss, enticing him with a rough, wet press of lips that did nothing to hide the restrained magnetism behind it.

“No, that’s definitely … not asking,” Chuck said after a length of time that seemed fuzzy. Reflexes made him shift his thigh, pressing it to Casey’s. “I’m not … saying I mind, though.”

Casey’s eyes settled on him, like balmy August heat on his skin. “Good. ‘Cause I don’t plan on asking a lot of questions tonight.” The words out, he slid a hand around the back of Chuck’s neck, pulled his head down for another kiss. Burnished, pulsating as the color orange, too powerful to do anything but melt into it. And not needing to coax him open this time, Chuck let him in without thinking. He felt Casey smile and slip his tongue inside along his own, pressing in deep, demanding a taste.

“Ohph, Ca ….” Chuck managed a breath of a sound after that, also swallowed down. He parted his lips further, wanting to explore, wanting to tease Casey’s tongue the way Casey played with him. When he did, the kid heard a low growl at his boldness, a sound Chuck interpreted as approval. The larger man increased the pressure behind the kiss, and seduced by the erotic gentle push that had his lower belly coiling, Chuck was beyond thinking, only wanting to touch. He brought up a hand, splayed over his chest, kneading the smooth slope of his pecs, trailing over a patch of curly chest hair.

In the back of his mind, he knew kissing him wasn’t going to be enough anymore. There were words he couldn’t say to him, didn’t know how to begin. He couldn’t, because they contained shame and hurt bottled up for years.

But up here where it was safe, his body unraveled under the kiss, shedding every wound, everything in him straining with need. Only knowing that it was okay to feel this way with another man, that he wasn’t built wrong or different than other humans.

Chuck. Just Chuck.

With an unyielding arm fastened around the kid’s waist, Casey pulled back just enough to lower his head, press his lips to his throat. Then across his cheekbone, trailing just below his ear to the slope of his smooth neck.

“Look at you,” Casey whispered abruptly, heated breath touching the unruly curls above his ear. “You can’t say it, can you? But you can bat your eyelashes, give a crooked smile, and have a man down on his knees …. Make him fall for a brown-eyed boy … one who doesn’t even know what he needs …. That’s it, eh?”

“I – I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Casey chuckled against his ear, palming the back of his neck. “I know,” he agreed softly.

Closing his eyes at the touch, his lashes grazed Casey’s cheek. He felt the other man’s lips ruffling his hair, a large hand lingering at his hip. Casey had to know this would only fluster him. That didn’t stop the voice in his head making him ask.

“What … what do I need, then?” Chuck swallowed hard. “I’m asking.”

Casey sat back. The noise in his chest sounded distinctly like piqued interest. “Smart boy,” he said, his hands landing on Chuck’s top button of his shirt. “You finally asked the right question. This.”

He had no idea how Casey could go from breathy lover to a singularly focused stripping machine in two blinks, but –

“Ho – hold on, now! What are you doing?!”

“I thought I only had to explain it the first time today, genius.” Without even looking, Casey swatted Chuck’s fingers away. “You should know by now what this is.”

Chuck gaped and pulled back. “I really didn’t have time to even – you’ve … you’ve already taken my shirt twice today!”

“Notice, kid, how we both just said the same thing there?”

Apparently, that was the end of the argument, because keeping his eyes pinned to Chuck’s face, he methodically continued on the path to unhitch the buttons. Casey was on the third one and heading south before the kid could make another grab at his hand.

“Okay, okay. This is insane.” Chuck rose on his knees, and since Casey was still sitting, this put his head well above the larger man’s for once. “Just this time, can you listen to me?”

Casey squinted up at him. A strained moment passed, but the insistent tone halted his fingers. “Bloody hell, this had better be worth it,” he said.

Worth it? Chuck wasn’t sure how to take that, since he had already shared his not-so-prodigious track record with the man.

“How about … letting me do it this time?” the kid asked, flashing a wary smile. He lifted a hand to Casey’s collar and ran his finger over to his shoulder, tracing the line of brawn. The wheedling look should’ve explained everything. “Can I?”

“Do what?” Casey wanted to know, sounding suspicious.

Okay. His first attempt at seduction – is that what this is? – was going as well as the time he was eight and accidently burned down his mother’s potting shed.

Maybe not even that spectacularly awful.

Chuck let out a sigh, took Casey’s fingers in his hand, and squeezed them gently. “Your shirt. Let me take the lead this time? I wouldn’t mind seeing you again. Without this.” Ignoring the butterflies in his stomach, the kid played with the first button to make his point. “I think it’s my turn.”

“Your turn.” Casey pointed a hard expression his way, and Chuck almost flinched. Obviously, the concept was foreign to him.

“Um, you know, letting me ..?” Strip him. Considering what was going to happen in the loft tonight – or at least he was hoping so – it seemed he should be able to say it by now. “Doesn’t this work both ways? I mean, if I want to ….” And cautiously, Chuck unfastened the top button of Casey’s light blue chambray. “Do this? I should be able to, right?”

Casey made a ‘hmm’ noise. It was somewhere in the range of unconvinced, however worth analyzing before telling him to shut up and roll over. Chuck almost got down from his knees, as it seemed to perturb him that he had to look up. But instead, Casey shifted his weight on the mattress and rose to his knees in front of him. At the squeak of the frame and rustle of feathers and blankets, he moved in, hip bone to hip bone, chest to … er, very … wide … chest.

“Go.”

“G-go?” Chuck’s head popped up, which made it abundantly clear that he had stopped making eye contact when Casey got on his knees. “Meaning ..?”

“You wanted a turn, didn’t ya?”

“Yes, but I – is it a race?”

“Whatever helps ya, kid. Just take it.”

“What happened to going slow?” Chuck asked, and not knowing what else to do, he traced a small circle with his finger over Casey’s chest. Casey watched him, the taut look evident even with only a splash of light emanating from the kerosene lamp, bathing the room in a golden glow. Still, there was enough of it to create a dance of shadows on his face, over the slope of his cheeks, the angular line of his jaw. Chuck tried not to get lost in it while he waited for an answer.

“Kid,” Casey murmured at last, startling him when he took both elbows and pressed his temple against the side of Chuck’s head. The position aligned their bodies, so close, every limb of Casey’s rippling with power against his. Chuck shivered and closed his eyes, his head filled with the scent of his hair, the lingering fragrance of soap, clean skin from the cool creek.

“Yes? I’m listening.” As if that was an option.

“You are going to kill me if you go any slower,” Casey said.

“Oh.” Chuck smiled. “That would cast a pall on the entire evening, don’t you think?”

Casey angled his head and stared. The only movement was the fingers on his arms digging in.

“And I should start on these buttons.” Steeling himself, Chuck looked down at his chest hair peeking out of the shirt, the span of his chest, and sucked in a large steadying breath. “Slow can be overrated.”

“Seems to me you saw plenty today, too,” Casey said, focused on Chuck’s fingers moving down in a hurry, plucking one button, then on to the next.

“I did.” Chuck darted his eyes up briefly and a smile blossomed. “But the whole fear-for-your-life situation has a tendency to cloud up your vision.” He felt a blush coming on and tried to look somewhere else rather than the place where Casey’s shirt lay open, revealing flesh in a long sultry V. That didn’t work so well. “It doesn’t help when … the object of your daydreams is also a terrifying … and kind of thrilling thought.” There, the honest truth.

While he had been talking, the last button was freed. The placket flipped open, revealing dense muscles, more springy hair, a fine layer over his pecs that narrowed, arrowing down in a path to his jeans.

Take it slow. Chuck repeated the mantra, wanting to feel this with all his senses.

On the other hand …. to get a good view, the shirt had to come off. So while the kid bit down on his lips, knowing Casey’s eyes were on him and watching everything, Chuck tugged it off his shoulders.

What was the polite thing to do here, anyway? “Are – are you warm enough? Without this?”

Casey gave him an unreadable look. “Don’t worry about me, kid. I’m … warm enough.”

“I just thought I should – oh.” Holding the shirt balled up in his hands, Chuck slanted a look down and blinked at him like a damn idiot. Because holy Christ.

“That what you wanted to see, brown eyes?”

See? Chuck wanted to reach out and touch, rub his face against him, his chest. The man was all brawn and muscle and nothing like him. Inching forward, the kid’s attention lingered on the wide plane of his chest, the swell of his pecs …. And biceps. God, those arms. They were bent at his side, as if waiting for the kid make one wrong move. Touch him the wrong way. Yeah, go ahead. I dare ya.

Did he have any idea how intimidating he was?!

Chuck got brave and ran a hand up one of his arms. He didn’t even know this about himself, but there was something about the way the muscle along his biceps stood out like thick bands of rope that made his heart pick up. Stuttering like a drum. He liked the way the sparse hair of his forearms tickled his palm as he dragged his hand down, the thickness of his wrists. All of it. Feeling more courageous, Chuck tested his forearm by clenching, releasing. Yep. Just as he thought. Firm as a damn rock.

“Holy crap,” Chuck heard someone say. Then he swallowed and turned bright red.

“Cupcake?” Casey said, lifting a brow.

“Hm?”

Casey tried again to pry his shirt from Chuck’s other hand. “Going to let go? Thought I would toss it on the chair for you.”

“Oh, sure. Take it.” Chuck covered his embarrassment with a grin. “Sorry. Really, I didn’t mean to be ….”

“Staring like a fool?” Casey smirked. “Got quite a grip there, kid.”

“I do?” Chuck looked up from a place he wanted to put his hand. “Did I say sorry?”

“A few times,” Casey replied. He brought a hand up to scrub over his chest, scratched one of his shoulders. It wasn’t intentional, was it? The way the movement bunched up the pure muscle provocatively? Chuck had to wonder, until he glanced up into a sly smile. “You should tell me about these daydreams of yours,” Casey went on, his low voice blanketing him, rich velvet and heat. “Or maybe what you think about at night.”

“D-daydreams?” Chuck brought up his palms and somehow they landed on Casey’s chest. “Oh no. No, no, no. Some things should be left unsaid.” Fawning over a pair of broad shoulders while he straddled him naked being one of those things.

Casey let go of his arms, the smile still curving his mouth. “Now you adopt this philosophy?”

“You already got too much out of me today,” Chuck said quickly. As he looked up, he had no idea why Casey was holding back a laugh. “And you’re a very confusing man.”

“I am, eh?” Casey gave a conspicuous look around the loft, ending at the tarp. “Fly boy?”

“Um, do you think you can relax your arms … just a little?”

“I am relaxed.”

“Really. Huh,” Chuck wrapped a hand on his arm, attempting to bend one of Casey’s elbows. When it stayed locked, he lifted his eyes with a baffled stare. “Because it’s a little menacing to be like this when it looks like you’re getting ready to kick my ass.” He poked at his upper arm – yep, locked and loaded – and then brushed his fingers over it. “Do you ever unwind a little? Or are you always ready for a brawl?”

“Comes in handy in my line of work,” Casey answered.

“Okay. Here. I just want to …. Well. I’ll show you.”

“Careful.” Casey gave him a look that managed to make one syllable ominous.

“I …. Can you just let me?” Giving him a persuading smile, Chuck gave in to the urge to place his palms over the meat of his bare pecs. He squeezed firmly, stroked, dug his fingers in, reveling in the feel of hard flesh and heat. And oh, hell, it should not clench his whole insides, just by touching, caressing muscle as if to imprint every inch of Casey’s upper body on his mind.

“Watch it.” Now there was a hint of warning in the larger man’s tone.

“God,” the kid mumbled, only vaguely conscious that Casey had tensed. “You have a hell of a body.” Achingly aware that it was the first time he had been allowed to touch a man like this, he drew in a breath, looking down the slope of his abdomen –  
Until a strong hand circled his fingers, cinched down, and held on.

“Ow!” Chuck’s eyes blew wide. He tried to pull back, but that maneuver didn’t work so well. Instead Casey used his hand to reel him in.

“What the hell,” Casey growled, “do you think you’re doing?”

“You’re – can you let go?!”

Casey thought about it a bit too long. “It’s not a damn scratching post, you know,” he finally muttered, tossing his hand back at him.

“Sorry! Did I scratch you?” Flailing his free hand in apology, Chuck ran his palm down Casey’s rigid arm, leaving a little healing rub here and there. “I didn’t – scratching post? Wait. What does that –”

“Ever see a little black bear and a tree in mating season?”

Chuck puckered a brow and sat back on his heels. “So this is funny to you,” he remarked. “Because I want to touch you?”

“Like a damn pining schoolgirl,” Casey said.

Chuck lifted his chin at the slur to his manhood. “I’m neither of those things,” he lied, because, fine – he was probably pining by now. “Maybe I was just a little … overenthusiastic, that’s all.” Not that he could be blamed. He was curious about what had been straining the fabric across his chest, noticing that particular nuisance every time the man reached for anything. And now that Chuck got a look, gawping didn’t cut it. He had to –

“Touch. Humph.” The scoffing noise was accompanied by a long gaze, one that dragged from the place where the kid’s shirt hung partway open before the hasty interruption, then back to his face. “Is that what you want?

“Yes. That’s – that’s it.” Chuck looked up to the rafters and shook his head. “Silly of me. I should’ve realized that you’d lean towards the ‘strike-like-a-rattlesnake’ method.” At the blank look, Chuck smacked his fist against an open palm and ground it in a bit for effect. “In and out without the –”

“Wasted time?”

Chuck grimaced. He had no idea if Casey was still teasing him, or telling him the pace would be the death of him. “I was going to say – getting to know each other’s skin a little bit. Are you okay with this? With letting me … catch up?” Reaching out, he ran his knuckles down the center of Casey’s chest. “Well?”

Casey leaned back on his heels and tucked a thumb in his front pocket. The kid saw with relief that some of the tension that made his arms bulge in interesting places eased out of him. Not that the overall picture in front of Chuck, bare-chested and hard, wasn’t still interesting. It was. But more curious, Casey’s posture reflected cautious acceptance.

“You were right about one thing, brown eyes,” he said after a minute. “I’m not … accustomed to a man like you.”

“Is that a yes?”

Taking Chuck by the hips, his large hands clenched, steering the kid forward until his knees slid into the cradle of Casey’s spread thighs. “We can try it your way,” he said. Gently, he cupped his ass through the denim, Casey’s touch burning his backside like a brand. Like a blazing mark tagging his possession, and Chuck had the potent sensation Casey was simply claiming what he thought was already his.

Chuck felt another hard shudder.

“You want to catch up?” Casey said. Reaching out, he lightly brushed the pad of his thumb over the kid’s full bottom lip. Heat radiated through his palm. “You can start here. With me.”

-x-End Wings of Grace Chapter Fourteen-x-


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

-x-

“Start with who – what?” 

The kid cringed at the way it came out. To cover his faux pas, his eyes drifted down – oh, no, not there! – and quickly back up again to his face. 

So that was it. Casey must’ve wanted him dead, Chuck realized, as the other man would never grab him by the ass, use it as a convenient carry-all Chuck-handle to haul him in, and then string together a few words that he had to know would make stop breathing.

There was only one thing to do. 

Well, there were probably a million things to do, but his brain chose what had to be the worst option on the planet. 

“Catch up?” Chuck jolted backwards and his hands flew up, flailing, accidently landing on the first thing he could grab to get his balance. So what if it happened to be Casey’s bare chest? He needed firm and steady right now. It was … warmer than he remembered, too, but then again, his brain had stopped working a few minutes ago. 

Still trying to process Casey’s bluntness, Chuck’s gaze shifted down one more time to the place where his knees were now neatly tucked between a pair of muscular denim-clad thighs. “Oh. Oh, boy. I – I have a sneaking suspicion you and I may not hold to the same theorems. Slow being one!”

“Here’s a theorem,” Casey said, snapping his fingers in front of Chuck’s face. “This isn’t fun if you forget how to breathe. Trust me, cupcake.” The wandering hand on Chuck’s backside bit into a slim morsel of geek flesh, giving him a tight squeeze. “You’re gonna want to be awake for this.”

“Ah! Don’t …. Okay, I get it. I do. These ….” – another hand flail when the word couldn’t be found – “concepts may be foreign to you. But for me? Take it slow? Or let me catch up? They mean things! I’m not just a quick lay, you know!”

Casey glared, and Chuck sincerely hoped he wouldn’t point that thing at his flying machine. No doubt, that particular look could splinter it into a smoldering pile of twigs and fabric in about two seconds flat. 

“Oh, joy,” Chuck said under his breath. “That could’ve come out wrong.”

“Here’s something to think about, genius,” Casey demanded. “How are you gonna catch up if you’re sitting a mile and a half away?” Then he muttered under his breath, “Can’t send this through the damn Western Union, you know.” 

“And I really don’t want to think about the implications of what’s going on in your mind.”

“Only damn place it’s going on, too,” Casey tacked on.

“Um.” Chuck wasn’t sure how to take that gem of brilliance further and stay out of trouble. The truth was it had been going on in his mind fairly voraciously for a few days, and he found it quite pleasant. Safer that way. The John Casey in his daydreams, holding him down while the rain pelted them, warming him in the cave, had no qualms spending a few lazy hours in the grassy meadow, maybe letting the kid move on top to straddle his waist, a feast of tanned skin underneath him ….

This version was a bit more … testy. But daydreams had nothing on having the real thing within touching distance; half naked, his chest with a fine sheen of sweat, a man breathing hell-fire on his neck.

Slow, slow, take it nice and slo – 

“Pants.” 

“P-pants?”

Not waiting, Casey took Chuck’s hand and moved it lower, until it rested on the fly of Casey’s jeans. “Ask nice-like, pancake, and I’ll let you take ‘em.” 

“Ask?” There was no asking in his fantasy! 

“Yeah, for that, eh?” As Casey flattened his palm over his, making Chuck cup his cock through his jeans – damndamndamn! – he realized that maybe his daydreams needed an adjustment. Fondling Casey, even through his pants, should’ve been one of those musings …. 

Chuck shook his head. Blinked. “Listen, John, I know you’re the kind of man who shoots first and asks questions later – ah.” The kid had to suck in a breath there, only because Casey had chosen that moment to steer his hand to the hard ridge of his dick, pressing in and letting Chuck flex his fingers over him. “Oh.”

“You were sayin’, cupcake?”

He didn’t remember. 

Think think think ….

Wait a damn minute. Chuck had to remind himself who he was dealing with, and that the mysterious, albeit handsome stranger didn’t show up on his doorstep with a bullet hole because of his sweeping contributions to decent society. (And Chuck vowed to himself that after he let Casey lead him, he would eventually hear the story of who he was). 

But, that sneak! Casey was manipulating him, wasn’t he? Chuck Bartowski was not going to let the second time pass in a hazy mist. Did Casey really think he was a fast fuck and nothing else?

“We need a compromise,” the kid announced.

“What, no beggin’, I suppose,” Casey griped. Without letting go of Chuck’s hand, the gentle stroking through Casey’s jeans didn’t stop, even as the larger man leaned forward, his mouth hovering a mere inch from Chuck’s. Still, it startled the kid when he lazily brushed his lips to his, burning his mouth with a lure to come in and get his own taste. “I should let you know,” Casey said, his voice gravelly, low. “I like it.” 

“Really?” Chuck pulled back to squint at him. “Uh, that’s – but that’s not what I meant by compromise.”

“Good.”

Chuck blinked at that sly smile. Now was not the time to consider the acts of persuasion he had just committed himself to.

But despite the scary thoughts that flooded his brain, Chuck quelled the urge to scoot out of the cozy nook between his knees. Because he wanted to do this. Whatever Casey had in mind, and the kid had very hazy memories to go by, he wanted to feel it, not be told he was committing a mortal sin. This was what it was like to be human, with needs and dreams, to punch a fist through the box that held his regimented life. To be a rebel. 

Well, today, anyhow.

“I’m not done, though,” Chuck said, wrestling his hand out from under Casey’s, away from the substantial bulge under his splayed fingers. Holy hell, but he was going make sure he touched him there again tonight. Just not … now. “All right, maybe we can think without the … distractions.”

Casey snorted. “I was doin’ just fine with them.” He made a grab for Chuck’s hand, obviously to put it right back, but the kid lifted it behind his head.

“Wait! Sheesh. I have a question. Do you even know what compromise means?” 

Lightning fast, Casey reached over Chuck’s head, snared his wrist, and pulled it down. “I know what it usually means.”

“Ow. Okay, okay, you can have it.” Chuck frowned at how quickly he had been able to do that. “Just don’t … you know, put it anywhere until we’re done talking.” 

“Yeah, like where?” Casey wondered, and oh that grin was not to be trusted.

“Hold on. Back up a minute.” Chuck started by trying to delicately twist his wrist free. That went as well as he anticipated, so he huffed instead. “I fear the answer, but I have to ask – usually?”

Casey rolled his eyes. “Usually, I handle compromises by bitch slapping the pussy who wants to try, and then just doin’ it my way anyway.”

Chuck gaped. “Are you – that’s not a compromise!” 

“No, but it’s efficient.” A hand as big as an English saddle came out and gave his knee a lewd squeeze. “Gotta admit that, eh, kid?”

“Okay, let’s try this again without the threats of bodily harm. And,” Chuck raised his index finger as Casey broke in to argue, “without using my … lower extremities as your own personal handlebar.”

“Taking all the fun out of it, aren’t ya, city boy.” Sliding his hand over Chuck’s chest, he strayed downward until he reached the waistband. “But I noticed you can be a sweet talker when you put your mind to it. So, okay. We’ll compromise – we can start with your pants instead.”

“Whoa.” Chuck squirmed, displacing the roaming hand, and maybe pissing off the owner of that hand, judging by the sour look. “Slow down, cowboy.”

“Let me guess,” Casey said. “You want something.” 

Amazing how he could make it sound like a threat.

“Want?” Chuck’s brows disappeared under a wayward curl. “It took you a half hour of me asking for you to figure that out?”

“What are you sayin’?” The grip tightened.

“Um, okay, calm … calm,” Chuck said. Gingerly, he reached out to touch his knee. “This is what I meant – the compromise? What if it’s … me asking?” 

Only when Casey narrowed his eyes at him did Chuck put on his lop-sided grin. Why not? He didn’t get here by being stupid – and he couldn’t help but notice Casey’s gaze always seemed to linger over his mouth when he smiled at him. Or maybe when he lowered his lashes, just for a flicker, down to the place his kneecaps met the spread of Casey’s thighs.

Kind of like he was doing right now. 

While Casey studied his innocent face, his fingers played with the top button of Chuck’s jeans. Contemplating. But after a long pause, he scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck, and blew a breath. “Tell me. And this better be fast.”

Chuck’s grin went electric at the win. “You know, that might just be progress,” he said, letting one of his hands land in the furry hollow between Casey’s pecs. “What I mean is that I can see, well, you’re used to being in charge – and I’m fine with that, really I am –”

“Good to know, because let me tell ya kid, that is non-negotiable.”

The way he said it, firmly, his no bullshit voice, should not have sent a bolt of curious heat though the kid. No, he could only chock it up to the fact his hand rested in a warm place, and Casey’s fingers still looped around his other wrist, making him shiver. Not the desire to know what he meant by taking charge.

Pinpoints of heat peppered his cheeks, and he had to clear his throat and look away. “But for now, just … now, would it be acceptable to let me lead – some? 

When Chuck ran his hand over his chest, down his bare arm, over the swell of muscle to his elbow, he met Casey’s eyes. He had no clue what to expect in the look he would get. 

None of the past shadows were there, nothing familiar. Not a single thing that reminded him of Ellie’s wistful eyes, half exasperated, half amused with his pursuits, or his father’s disappointment in his decisions. Or just him in general. Dissatisfied that he had not selected his natural position in life, spending time in his dirty workshop, with his tools of the working class. Bad as the Irish, he used to say.

Because never had a pair of eyes, silken streaks of a blue sky, fastened to him like they did now. Chuck had never been the object of real desire, hunger, laced with fire. Until now. Did he know what those eyes could do to him?

“Pancake?” Casey said, curling his fingers around his jaw, holding him still in case he had any notion of ducking his head.

Chuck grimaced. “Not answering to that this time, so –” 

“You can lead for a few minutes.” Casey squeezed, silencing him. “If that’s what you want.”

“You mean I can – wait.” The sensual intent in his eyes had Chuck tilting his head at him. “Is this is a trick?”

“Now you’re down to a minute and a half, kid.”

“Yes, sir,” Chuck said, two words that had Casey raising a brow at him in curious amusement. He didn’t add to the conversation, though, and the kid was grateful, because there was no time to waste. He’d never been invited to explore a body – well, one that wasn’t his own – and particularly a body that had been gifted with an abundance of smooth, firm brawn, a springy patch of chest hair where he now had actual permission to lay his palm. Right there. Shifting his eyes, he followed a trail of dark hair that began between his nipples, trying not to pay attention to the place it disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans. It … tickled. Nice. He did like that, but wasn’t about to say it out loud. 

“Muscles,” Chuck said, tracing them to his shoulders. “Mmm. I never knew this, but I think I’ve decided that I like them.” He looked up shyly and added, “Yours at least.”

“Yeah?” Casey’s eyes traveled down the kid’s neck and shoulders, scarcely repressing a smart-ass smile. “You should think about getting some, then.”

Chuck shook his head at the humorous glint, but it didn’t stop him from running his fingers over Casey’s upper body slowly and smiling back at him. “I think this is enough for both of us, but thanks.”

Casey snorted, because what else could he do. Argue? 

“How about this,” Chuck said in a murmur, one hand drifting over a nipple. Purposely, he circled it with the pad of his thumb, and flicked the nub gently. He lifted his gaze to gauge the reaction, and waited.

Casey shrugged. 

“Oh-kay, then. That’s a no, I take it.” Chuck’s grin broadened at the thought he had learned something, and decided to keep going. 

“Are you done yet?” Casey asked, watching as Chuck trailed his hands down his arms, feeling every muscle under his fingers. 

“Not even close.” Chuck circled his wrists and hung on, wanting to keep Casey’s hands out of the mix for a minute or two.

“Then what else do you like, kid?” 

“That’s not going to work.”

“What?”

“Making it sound like a dare, so I’ll tell you?” He wasn’t ready for that, and there was no way he was going to get sucked in to whatever he implied. 

Casey made a scoffing noise. “You’re worse than a damn virgin on her wedding night.”

“That’s not going to work, either.” Ignoring Casey’s baiting tactics for now, the kid dipped his head, pressing his lips to Casey’s bare shoulders, kissing along the warm skin to his neck. Moving to his throat, he nuzzled him there, breathing in the woodsy scent of masculinity that radiated from his skin. 

"Easy, kid." Casey's voice stirred something low.

“Hm? God, you smell really good right now,” he whispered against the curve of his neck. “Did you know that? You taste … really good, too. Right here.” Tentatively, he dropped a kiss under his ear. Lips tingling and slightly parted, he then pressed a simple kiss at his pulse. “Does that … feel okay?”

Chuck waited. For anything, really.

Lifting his head, he saw that Casey had his eyes closed, his jaw flexing. 

“Goddamn you ….” he heard him breathe at last.

Chuck nearly scrambled away, but froze when he saw Casey swallow hard, felt his wrists tighten in his hands. 

It hit him. He was the one – Chuck Bartowski, a gangly misfit nobody wanted – made this beautiful man’s chest expand as his breathing picked up, just by finding out the way he wanted to be touched. 

Suddenly, he wanted to learn more. About him, about fitting together, and not just awkward limbs and muscle. Fitting with a man who for some godforsaken reason, saw something in him.

Brushing his lips at Casey’s temple, he laid a light kiss on his jaw, his neck, both with light stubble since he hadn’t bothered to shave. “Did I surprise you?” Chuck wondered softly, his vision dominated by those blue eyes of his. 

“My turn, kid,” Casey answered, but his voice was hoarse. “That’s enough.”

Not intending to press his slight, temporary advantage, Chuck relaxed his hands, and Casey twisted his wrists gently to pry them from his grasp. Just the sight of pink splashed over the larger man’s cheeks and neck told the kid he wasn’t the only one who had taken pleasure from a little hands-on investigation. 

“If I didn’t know better,” Chuck started, tentatively bringing a hand to Casey’s waist, “I’d say you might’ve just enjoyed taking the time to touch – maybe get to know – gah.”

“Touching, eh? Here’s some for ya, kid.” Without skipping a beat, Casey’s fingers made a hasty path down the first two buttons of Chuck’s shirt. “Bet you’re the kind of boy that likes fair play, aren’t you? And since you took my shirt already, that means we need to get rid of this next.” 

“Again, what happened to go slow?!” The scrape of bare knuckles down his breast bone made Chuck suck in a breath, and knowing he couldn’t stop Casey’s hands, he did the next best thing by folding his arms over his chest. “Hold on! I think I had a minor breakthrough there!”

“Kid?” Casey said in a growl, not letting go. “This little act you have going on? Being … untried? A little pure?” 

“I never used those words!”

“It’s nice. I like it.” Leaning in, Casey’s fingers clutched a handful of his loose collar. “But if you leave your arms there another two seconds, I will move them for you,” he said plainly. “Nod that you heard me.”

“N-nod?” Chuck repeated, wincing at the hold on his shirt. “It’s not what you think. I want to, I do … but ….”

He saw Casey frown as he puzzled over that. “What do you mean?”

“You … you said I’m not much to look at.”

Casey just shook his head in confusion.

“Muscles?” Chuck went on pointedly. “I ‘should get some’? I’m not like you, okay?” 

“So your solution in this situation, genius, is to just leave your shirt on?”

“Well, when you say it like that … geez, okay, I’m an idiot at this.” With a resigned huff, Chuck dropped one of his arms and then the other to give him access. “You do know you could take pity on me. A grizzly bear tried to drown me in a creek today.” 

“Yeah, I saw that bear,” Casey said, rubbing one of Chuck’s shoulders. “I think he mighta took stock of you when you were swimming.”

“He … did?”

“Yeah.” Slowly, deliberately, Casey ran a hand down his chest, rumpling his shirt. “Did you ever think he might like this?” 

Chuck braced himself for the sarcastic laugh. It didn’t come. “No, I guess that thought didn’t occur to me.”

“Which is why you are the idiot.” 

Chuck swatted at his hand. “Glad we had this talk.” 

“Sensitive little shit, aren’t ya?” Casey observed. 

Chuck’s dirty look faded, though, when Casey leaned forward right then and hooked a hand in the back of his jeans. Fingers drifted down, over his ass, squeezing in. The other hand stayed at his placket and began working on the rest of the buttons. 

“Just because you have a hand on my ass doesn’t mean I don’t know what the other one is up to, you know,” Chuck said with a bewildered look. “I mean, just like that you’re going to –” 

“Shut up.” In answer to the rebuke on the tip of Chuck’s tongue, Casey lowered his head, kissed him hard. It was raw, hot, teeth scraping, and told him he was taking no more argument. “Were you listening? I like it,” he muttered against his lips. 

“Ca … mmph.” No soft kiss, not like the lull of inducement that got him on the bed in the first place. His lips parted, scorching, tasting the flavor of man and musk on his tongue, feeling the caress of Casey’s hand along his ribcage. Closing his eyes, Chuck lost himself in the sensation of being held down and stroked. It took forever, and he didn’t mind, until Casey tore his mouth away from him. 

“Okay, you win,” the kid gasped. “I believe you. You can have the shirt.”

“Put your hands down. Here,” Casey said, a little breathless. As a sign of impatience, he took hold of Chuck’s palms and held them down to the bed. “Keep them there.”

“As in … stay?” Perturbed at the order, he wanted to move, but his cock had other ideas. Other ideas that involved watching Casey’s hands flip his shirt open, the way his muscles rolled under his skin with each movement as he plucked at the buttons. 

All right, then. For now, he did it. 

Casey watched the bit of internal resistance with a wry smile. When ‘stay’ won, he ruffled the kid’s hair and began tugging the shirt from his shoulder, whispering something under his breath.

“What does that mean?” Chuck asked. “It was Irish, wasn’t it? Maith hoga?” 

Whatever it meant, it made Casey look up briefly and chuckle. “Not bad. You catch on fast, kid.”

“So?” Chuck’s eyes widened, waiting for translation.

Casey bit down on his lip to stop his smile. “No.” With Chuck’s shirt now flapped loose, he moved to tug it off the rest of the way, but stopped when the sleeves bunched on the kid’s upper arms. Glancing up at him with a look the kid would call devilish fun, he left it there. 

“I thought that you were … going to take it?” Chuck looked down, mystified by this. His arms were still in the shirt like a harness, not tight, but it was enough to put his chest on display while it kept his hands pinned to his sides. 

Uh-oh. 

But – he could’ve easily wrestled his way out of it. Why he didn’t might be a thought to muddle around later, but not at this moment. Not with Casey studying him, unhurriedly trailing his fingers along Chuck’s ribs, tracing each one. “You want me to touch you?” he asked, lips tugged up into a smile. “Is that what you wanted?”

“Oh, God.” The kid took a deep breath, feeling his entire lower belly clench – excitement swam there, but rattling nerves did the dog paddle along with it.

Reaching out, Casey put a hand on the hollow of his collarbone, swiped his thumb there, warm against his skin. Then his palm slid behind Chuck’s neck, playfully threading his fingers under his hair. 

“Like it,” Casey murmured. He dipped his head, pressing his lips to his lower shoulder, drifting down his arm. A pair of strong hands followed in the same heated path, his palm curving around the muscle of Chuck’s lean bicep, the other caressing the skin of his lower ribcage. “Want you … like this.”

“It tickles – just a little when you – ah … okay … whatever you want.” Maybe it wasn’t wise to offer up that kind of permission – with the whole arms imprisoned thing going on. But the exploration with his lips kept Chuck frozen in place just as solidly as the sleeves trapping his elbows. Hell, ten times more so, because under the warmth, his smooth hands, he couldn’t move. Didn’t want to. 

“You were wrong,” Casey said, one arm reaching behind him to coil the fabric, and now with the shirt tautened, Chuck was unable to lift his arms, allowing Casey access to any part of him. 

“I … I was?”

“Don’t look surprised, kid.” Casey tempered the tiny barb with a hand to his jaw, holding it to brush his lips along Chuck’s cheek. “Wiry. Lean. That doesn’t make you not much to look at. You’re just different than me, that’s all.”

Chuck had no answer to that, so he stayed still under the touch, tried not to sway on his knees. Tried to act like everything was fine, and the loft wasn’t warm, that the air charged wasn’t with an odd energy between them. 

When Casey shifted on his knees, rubbing against that needy ache in his groin, the kid wobbled and shut his eyes. Don’t. Not yet. Too soon. Then he realized that despite the loose harness still holding his arms to his sides, he was able to grab Casey’s waist to steady himself, and the kid clamped his hands over the flesh just above his jeans. 

“Steady, kid,” Casey ordered, and Chuck could hear the smile. Still exploring, Casey’s fingers grazed his jaw, then slid around his neck. Threading through the chocolate waves at Chuck’s nape, he tugged gently at a handful of curls. 

“I like this, too,” Casey continued in that low tone, the dark thick silk sliding through his fingers. 

“Gentle, gentle. They’re attached back there, you know.” Chuck made an inarticulate sound as Casey curled his fingers more deeply, tangling. It didn’t hurt. Maybe it was his lips skimming his mouth but not kissing while he did it that made him groan.

“You’re trembling. Said I won’t hurt you, didn’t I?”

“I know ….” That strong hand on the back of his neck, steadying him, gave the kid a shot of confidence. “So, different. Is … is that euphemism for skinny?” 

“No, different like a colt,” Casey said, his hand dropping, easing down the kid’s back. “You remind me of one that needs to be broken in. Ornery and stumbly. But … long-legged and firm.” His jaw relaxed into an easy grin while his fingers ran lightly over the curve of his jeans, his ass. “The thing about colts … they want to learn which cowhand is boss.” 

“Want to?” Chuck reddened right up, which on second thought probably was the intent. “I don’t know how I feel about –”

“I can help you with that.” Casey took advantage of his hand placement, splayed over his ass, and teased the crease. Even as he moved his hand, he brought the other over Chuck’s bare sternum, down to his belly, then coursing over to a nipple. “You like the feelin’ part?”

Chuck had the distinct sense he was watching to see if he would wriggle his arms out of the shirt, or sit back on his heels and stay still. But, there was no denying … it felt good, letting him do this. At the stimulus, he closed his eyes, tipped his head towards the ceiling. “… oh – it’s – I don’t mind it –”

“Because I’m about done,” Casey said. “Enough with the touchy stuff, eh?” When the kid’s eyes sprung open, Casey’s face was close, a wry twist to his lips. 

“But –”

“Stand up.” All business-like, he took hold of the shirt by a shoulder and yanked off the makeshift harness, freeing Chuck’s elbows. “There.”

Hyper-aware of his bare upper body, Chuck covered his discomfort by stretching his unfettered arms. “Are there any other tricks you wanted to show me tonight? And by that I mean, please don’t –”

“Here’s one. Clothes. Off,” Casey cut in, increasing the pressure on his left buttock to shut him up. “Or more specifically, pants." 

“For the record, this is not at all how I thought –”

“Get up.” At the order, Casey gave a slight poke on his back that had Chuck walking on his knees to the edge of the bed. The slap on his ass made sure he did it fast enough. “Take ‘em off – let’s go.” 

“Just like that?” Chuck started to look away, down, anywhere, but another little push made him slide off the edge, though he was proud that he landed on his feet. “I told you, it’s not a contest to see who can finish first, so why –”

“All right. That’s it. You want slow?” Casey rose on his knees, and despite the fact he had to tilt his head up at him, the man was as potent as a herd of wild mustangs. “I can go slow. Now … drop … the … pants.”

Chuck’s jaw fell open and his feet automatically backed up a step from the bed. “That’s … that’s slow to you?!”

Casey rolled his eyes. “Thought you might want to do it yourself this time – and I wouldn’t mind watching,” he added, calm and precise, hooking a hand on his pants. “But we can do it your way.” 

“My way? My way is what, exactly?!” The kid wrenched his eyes away from the sight of Casey on his knees in front of him, only because his fingers had moved up to latch around a belt loop. “Hey! Wait, my way is you taking my pants?!” 

“You’re catching up, cupcake. Glad you came over to my way of seeing things. Besides,” and he paused to tug suggestively on the belt loop, “you didn’t complain when we … watched the sunset.” 

Chuck started to argue, but realized that Casey might have a point there. “Fine, I’ll do it. Hands off, okay? You – you can sit there and – and watch me.” His forehead crinkled, grasping he might’ve just dug himself a hole. “Whoa. What did I just say?”

“You mean, what did you just agree to,” Casey corrected with a smirk. 

“I did?”

“You heard me, princess.” Casey nodded, a way that said do it. His attention narrowed to the vicinity of Chuck’s waist. “Get them off. I’ll watch.” 

Chuck’s eyes followed those long legs stretched out and hanging over the edge of the mattress, past his bare chest, to see Casey plump up a blanket under his head and tuck his hands there, getting all comfortable-like. Like he was settling in. “When I said that, I meant –”

“Strip,” Casey said.

“You’re serious,” Chuck stammered. He figured he should be annoyed at being ordered around like this, and … and if it weren’t for the way Casey’s arms fell back above his head like that, making his biceps bulge in a perfect triangle over his head, or the way his thighs splayed loose and wide, he would be. 

Jesus, what was he doing? Because he didn’t feel that way.

Maybe it was the quiver of anticipation, beginning to pick up like a storm inside his chest. Or maybe it was something to do with a decisive – okay, half-naked – man on his bed wanting him when he thought no one ever would. 

No matter what it was, Chuck took it as an invitation to examine the landscape of what lay in front of him first. Too tempting not to. Because the man was beautiful and didn’t know it, or care. Full of easy confidence and authority, head to toe charisma, enough that Chuck found himself fumbling and tongue-tied around him more than once. Never had he met a man utterly content within his skin. 

“Well, let’s see what you have, boy toy.” Casey lifted a leg and nudged his knee. “Let’s go.”

“If I recollect, you did see what I have,” he reasoned. “And pretty up close and personal, too, I might add.”

Casey used his toe to nudge him again. “Not like this. Besides, it was dark.”

“That’s your argument?” Not knowing what to do with his hands, Chuck stuffed them in his pockets. “I can’t believe you want me to stand her and –” 

“Strip.” Casey’s strong foot dragged up the outside of Chuck’s jeans, swiped back and forth over his thigh. “Jesus, everything’s gotta be a fight with you, doesn’t it, brown eyes.” 

Huh. Rather than exasperated, he sounded … intrigued by the possibilities.

Automatically, Chuck’s hands dove a little deeper, but was there a chance he was being ridiculous? Logic reminded him that the man lying on his bed already saw everything there was to see. 

“All right, fine,” the kid said, turning his back to him. Hesitantly, he brought up his hands, but once he started on the first button, the second was easier. “And I should let you know, maybe you don’t mean to come off sounding like a big dick, but when you –”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” 

Chuck’s hands froze at the sexy low laugh of disbelief. 

“Um, you said strip, right?” The kid angled his head to look over his shoulder at him. “That’s what I’m doing.”

“Oh, hells bells this just gets better and better.” Shaking his head, Casey pinched the bridge of his nose. Chuck swore he heard him laugh again under his breath. “Cupcake?”

“At this point in our … whatever this is, you can probably feel free to call me Chu –”

“From now on, kid, when I say strip? That means you need to turn your ass around.” As if pained to have to explain it, Casey brought up a finger and made a circular motion. “Look at me, eh?” 

The kid felt his brows climb higher as he darted a look over his shoulder at him. “You want me to –”

“Not that you don’t have a sweet little ass there. But I want to see your … face when you’re doing it.”

“I’m – I should tell you I’m a little –”

“No, you’re fine in that department, kid.” Casey raised his chin in a gesture to get moving. “Let’s see you.”

Chuck looked up to the rafters for guidance. Wasn’t he just testing him? Finding out what he was willing to do? Sure, Casey had a penchant for teasing him, but hadn’t he been gentle so far? 

“You should’ve warned me about your special preferences when it came to this.” Chuck waited, dithering, rubbing his hand over the back of his neck. But swallowing down his embarrassment, he did it, feeling inexplicably nervous as he shuffled around in a half circle and held out his hands. “This is what you wanted?” Chuck asked. 

“Have you been paying attention, kid?” Casey chuckled and reached out with his foot, giving him a tap on the knee. “‘Cause you’re not even close. Yet.”

“I’ve never done this before,” Chuck felt compelled to blurt.

“Never would’ve guessed,” Casey replied, straight-faced as he adjusted the pillow under his head. “But if you keep talking, I may just fall asleep here.”

He wouldn’t dare, would he? Well, it took nothing more than that for Chuck’s hands to begin working on the top button of his fly. He ignored the fact that they were shaking a little, because dammit, he was going to do this. 

“Making you fall asleep wasn’t on my list,” he mumbled, hoping Casey didn’t notice the tight bulge under his jeans.

“You have a list, eh?” Chuck had moved a step closer now, and Casey could easily drag a foot up to his inner thigh, up and down. So he did that, smiling that Chuck didn’t back up. “Mind if I see it?” 

Cheeks burning, Chuck lowered his head and got back to his task. “Forget I said that.” As the fly of his jeans flapped open into a V, he figured he should move quickly before the freak-out stopped him from going further. With bravado he didn’t feel, he hooked his thumbs beneath the waistband and shimmied the jeans and undershorts down his hips, his thighs. When they were pooled at his feet, he toed them off to the side. 

Then he closed his eyes and waited for … he wasn’t quite sure. A burst of laughter, or even a shrewd remark? 

“Oh, shit,” the kid whispered to fill the silence. There went the mask of bravado, because he had never felt more naked. Slowly, he cracked an eye to a slit. “Casey?” 

At Casey’s closed expression, Chuck cocked his head in confusion, but it didn’t stop his toes from curling on the cool wood planks. Brilliant blue eyes traveled over his body with something that looked like appreciation – but that was impossible – sending a pulse of warmth through his veins. Maybe in other places he didn’t want to think about. Clueless as to what Casey was thinking, the kid forced himself to hold still under the scrutiny. 

He heard Casey drop one of his feet to the floor, and a quiet sigh. “Jesus, pancake. You are so ….” Casey’s soft utterance was like a prayer, something that didn’t roll off his tongue naturally, Chuck supposed. Casey paused there and dragged a hand through his hair, pointing his eyes towards the ceiling. “Goddamn it,” he said, making a guttural noise followed by a snort.

“Are you … mad at me?” Chuck asked. 

“No,” Casey said, and lowering his head, he pinned Chuck with a hard stare. “Not at you.”

“Then what were you going to say – about me?” As he moved closer, Chuck’s hands fell down in front of him subconsciously to shield his erection. He was having a hard time looking at Casey in the face. 

“Nothing. Move your hands.” It was a quiet command, capable of pulling Chuck in just with the sheer heat in it. “Put them down at your side.”

Without thinking, Chuck did as he was told. Standing there, he felt his hands reflexively make fists, and he had to fight the temptation to just bring them up again. But he reminded himself he had left his shame of what he was and everything he wanted the day he got on a train. 

“Okay, then. You really want to see me. This is me.” 

Casey said nothing at first. Damn if the way his attention strolled leisurely up Chuck’s six-foot-four frame, over his flat belly, then to his chest and shoulders didn’t arouse the kid more. Another few seconds, and Casey whistled between his teeth. “Fuck." Then there was a growly whisper that couldn't have been, “So fucking perfect.”

“I’m not sure –”

“Nuh-uh.” Abruptly, he shook his head when Chuck started to cover himself. “Not yet. Stay there. Just like that, brown eyes.”

Chuck flattened his palms along his thighs and let out a long breath, because his nerves didn’t need any more jangling. “I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

“No, you don’t, but how about this,” Casey interrupted, waving him off. “You are a fucking little idiot.”

“Hey!” Chuck felt his spine snap to attention. “Why do you –”

“Shut the hell up for once. Look at you, kid. You are too damn … pretty,” – and Chuck had the feeling it killed him to use that word – “to keep locked up out here in the middle of nowhere. By yourself no less.” 

“I have my reasons,” Chuck argued, deciding he should fold his arms to keep his hands from covering himself. “And they’re none of your business.”

“Reasons. Heh.” Softening, Casey brought up one of his bare feet to rub over Chuck’s lower belly, making his breath hitch at the touch. “A kid like you needs … company. Often.”

“I suppose telling me I’m idiot is your special way of volunteering?” Though puzzled, he had to admit the case of jitters diminished now that Casey was back to his mischievous banter. “Would that be so hard?”

“I like that, princess. You’re sassiness?” His foot lifted some, just grazing over his length, teasing. “Almost forgot how much I like young men, too. They know how to reload without waitin’.” 

“Reload? But I don't - oh." He licked his bottom lip. "And I’m not that young. I’m twenty-six, you know.” 

Casey suppressed a smile. “All of twenty-six. Worldly, too. Hell, I stand corrected.”

“Funny,” Chuck said, dodging his foot when it rose that time. “Not that it matters, but … how old are you, anyway?”

Casey mulled over the question, pausing to scratch at his upper arm. “Forty-one on my last birthday. Why? Does it matter?”

“Uh,” Chuck started, and cleared his throat. The kid then dragged his eyes over him, from his feet on up, stopping to watch Casey now rub the side of his neck. When the larger man noticed the inspection, his lip curled into a knowing smile, and Chuck felt himself falling deeper than he’d known he could go. “No, no, no.” He took another step. “Not a problem on my end.”

“Then come and sit down, brown eyes.” Nodding at the mattress, Casey moved over and gave him some room. “Leave your clothes in the pile there.”

“O-kay.” Giving him a nervous look, Chuck tossed his pants on the chair and pushed a hand through his dark curls, managing a small smile. 

“Gonna try to deck me, cupcake?” Casey asked, arching an eyebrow.

“What – of course not –” Chuck followed Casey’s line of sight downward. He was barely aware that his other hand had knotted into an anxious fist. “Oh.” 

Casey took his hand, carefully unfisted it finger by finger, and used it to pull him down on the bed. “At least you weren’t gonna try and slap me, eh?”

“Sorry,” Chuck mumbled. He sent a glance to the floor, caught sight of his stiffening erection at the discreet press of thighs, and wanted to bury his head. He was sure Casey would touch him right then, because it had to be incredibly obvious he wanted him to. “This is … cozy, isn’t it?”

“Getting there,” Casey replied. A large hand slid up his stomach, over to his shoulders, down his back. At the strong, steadying touch, Chuck’s insides swirled in a warm bath, and he stifled an unmanly shudder. He briefly closed his eyes and inhaled Casey’s rich scent, let it fill him so he wouldn’t forget. “Know what else I like?” Casey asked, one of his hands falling lower. 

“Let me guess.” Chuck forced himself not to glance at the man’s bulge in his jeans. Well, okay, not to stare at least. “Uh, torture?”

“Heh. That too.” Bowing his head, his warm lips brushed over Chuck’s, and the kid relaxed except for his fingers convulsing into the blanket. “But I don’t mean that this time,” Casey told him, running his knuckles down the slope of his ridged jaw. 

“Then … then what?”

“I like this.” Surprising the kid, he didn’t touch him where he thought he would. Instead of a male fist wrapped around his cock – God, he wanted to feel him – Casey’s hand dragged up his thigh, over soft sparse hair, down to his knee. “All of it. Not just that.”

It brought Chuck up short, it was so out of the blue. He was serious? “And ... here I thought you hated me up until yesterday.”

“You’re right, kid.” Casey gave Chuck a slow grin without repentance. “I did hate you up until yesterday.”

“Liar,” Chuck said, elbowing him.

“A damn good one, too.”

“That’s fine. I get it.” Chuck straightened, forgetting his nakedness. “Sit there and deny it. But the truth is I know that you sensed this – well, this thing between us – way before yesterday.” 

“The truth is this conversation is gonna make me wanna blow grits – which is too bad, since that pretty girl who wants to ride ya’ made a considerably passable dinner.” 

Chuck jerked his head at several unpleasant visuals. “Question. Was it your charm or eloquence that had a posse on your tail the night you showed up?”

The conversation grunted to a halt when Casey balled up one of the blankets and lobbed it at his head. Then he rose to his feet and said, “Shut it, button.” 

Fortuitously, Chuck turned his head away before beaming a smile. He wasn’t sure how Casey would take that kind of one-upmanship. But it was clear to him now, it wasn’t just about sex. Whether it was something about Casey or something within himself, he didn’t know. He only knew it was as if the need had always been there, waiting for him to look toward it. To find it. 

“Hey.” Standing in front of the kid, Casey’s hand touched Chuck’s jaw, his thumb at the corner of his mouth. “Look at me.” 

As Chuck obeyed, he noticed the larger man’s demeanor had changed when he stood. It was obvious to the kid something was going through his head, something that made him glance at the ladder. 

The ladder? Was he thinking about leaving, even after telling Chuck he was maybe worth another man’s admiration? 

“Is something wrong?” Chuck asked, leaning back to look up at him. “I thought we were staying here?”

“We are. Wanted to say something first.”

Chuck shook his head dumbly at two realizations. Casey wanted to talk, and he didn’t have Chuck flat on his back yet. “Yes? Am I doing something … wrong? Because you can just tell me, and I’ll –” 

“Christ, it’s not that. Listen. I plan on … doing a few things with you tonight.”

“I may be fairly new at this,” Chuck said, “but I did figure that out.”

“Simple things, for now.” He smoothed his thumb over the kid’s lips, and shrugged. “And you’re gonna have fun.” 

“Boy, the way you said it right then? I don’t know whether to be frightened or salute.”

“My army days are over kid, so if you salute, I’ll have to break both your thumbs.”

“It was … just – please, continue.”

“Good thinkin’.” Casey nudged his chin to force the kid’s attention up. “Because I wasn’t done yet.” 

Chuck focused his attention on his eyes, since he had no choice. “I’m listening.”

That wasn’t what he expected. He expected another smart ass remark, or for him to finally touch him where he wanted to be touched. But, no. Cupping his jaw, Casey bent down and kissed him until Chuck felt that faint quiver slide over him. His hand tightened on Casey’s waist, but the pressure increased, forcing him to sit back, despite wanting to get his hands over him. 

As Casey released his lips, he said into his ear, “I won’t let myself hurt you. If you can’t handle something that happens tonight … if you want it to stop, you say stop.” 

“Stop?” 

“Not oh, god or any other fucking deity, not please don’t, not even Goddamn strawberry pie. Got that? The word is stop.”

Frankly, he thought he might pass out if he actually considered for one minute why Casey was telling him this. “Okay, then. Stop.”

Casey’s other hand, tracing tight little circles on his upper thigh, stilled. “Now?” he asked, his gaze snapping up to survey the kid’s face. “You’re asking me to –”

“Hah. Got ya.” Chuck mustered up a grin, though his insecurities circled him, undulating. “Just seeing if you would.”

“Don’t worry,” Casey assured him, a hand passing through Chuck’s hair. “You won’t be saying it.” 

“You seem confident about that,” Chuck observed. “What will I be saying?”

“Hell, for starters, ‘thank you’ would be appreciated.”

Chuck rolled his eyes. “Sometimes, I forget how big of an arrogant jerk you are.”

The humorous noise translated loosely to ‘you got that right’. 

“Am I missing something here?” Watching Casey’s back, Chuck vaguely wondered what now had his attention at the workbench. He had no idea why Casey would leave him naked like this, so exposed, making the kid draw his knees up. “I’m the new guy at this, but weren’t you the one mentioning the importance of physical proximity in these circumstances?” he joked lamely. “I mean, you still … you still want to ..?”

“Fuck you?” Casey slanted a sideways look at him and scooped up an object from the table. “Yeah, that is the plan, cupcake.” 

“Oh … because I ….” Oh my God. Chuck leaned against the headboard and fought the urge to stroke himself at the vision that slapped him. Bastard. If that was the plan, what was he doing over there? Clenching the blanket seemed to be a way to keep his hands busy, so the kid did that and sighed. “What I said earlier? I was only joking about the torture.”

Casey’s answer was to chuckle. 

Thanks to his broad back, it was downright impossible to see what Casey was doing, but the muscles in Chuck’s shoulders tensed. “Um, you really shouldn’t be touching anything over there,” he said, giving Casey a cautious look. “I know it doesn’t look organized, but really, everything is – oh.”

The kid stared up at him. Then he scooted back.

At any other point, he would’ve appreciated the view of a damn good-looking man approaching his bed. But right now, Casey had found a strip of discarded canvass and was winding the two ends in his fists, looping them round and round. 

“What?” Chuck’s mouth opened, closed, the sounds drying up.

Casey took a look at him and kept twisting the ends. 

Swallowing hard, it was Chuck who sent a furtive glace to the ladder. Deciding that he would get halfway there before being tackled to the floor – and considering Casey’s size, it would hurt like hell – he eliminated that option. He pushed his back to the headboard, watching the twisting cloth in Casey’s fists, his gut doing the same. Not in a good way. More in a ‘what the hell was I thinking!’ and ‘now I’m a dead man’ way. 

With the headboard digging into his back, Chuck did the only thing he could think of. He forced himself to smile up at him. “What … what are you doing with that, John?” 

Casey sauntered up to the edge of the bed and lightly stroked Chuck’s bicep. “This, kid?” he said, and then grinned. “Making sure you’ll still be here when I get back.” 

-x-End Wings of Grace Chapter Fifteen-x-


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

-x-

Chuck, about to climb up off the bed - though he wasn’t quite sure where he was headed - had to pause and stay put. It wasn’t only misguided stupid modesty that kept him there. Standing in front of Casey naked was one thing, but Chuck wasn’t quite ready to stand up naked and confront him. 

“When you get back?” Instinct made him fold his legs up to his chest and wrap an arm around his knees, making himself a smaller target. It was a protective gesture, but the dangers were nebulous. 

Unless one counted the crazy giant holding the strip of canvass between his fists, strolling up to the side of the bed.

“Yeah. Hard-on affecting your hearing, kid?” Casey asked, suppressing a smile.

“As in … leaving?” Chuck cringed, ignoring the jibe. “Wait. Do you suddenly have somewhere to go that I don’t know about? Because I thought we were … I mean, correct me if I was getting the wrong impression, or that -”

“Nothing wrong with your impression, kid."

“Then … I want you to put that down.” A spike of bravery made Chuck lift his chin and nod at the cloth Casey held in his hands. “The way you’re holding it …. Well, it makes me -”

“Don’t tell me. Jittery, I suppose?” He shot him an eye roll, but Casey looked to the chair and tossed the cloth. After that, he moved Chuck’s pants out of the way and picked up his shirt where it was slung on the back of the chair. 

What? Chuck was sure something in his brain had taken a sharp turn when he saw Casey begin sliding his arm into one sleeve, then the other. “You weren’t kidding,” Chuck said, brows bunching up. “You really are going somewhere and leaving me like this.”

“No need to get ruffled, button,” Casey assured under his breath. “Not quite like that.” 

“And … and I’m not jittery. The word I was thinking of? Confused.” Chuck imagined his face wouldn’t support the little bald-faced lie, however, because yes, his nerves were being trampled by a herd of buffalo. He looked away, hoping to hide it. “Because I can’t help but notice that you’re putting your shirt back on, and I thought we had recognized -”

“That you like it better when it’s off?” Casey looked up from buttoning his shirt, and his jaw relaxed into a grin. Only two or three buttons were fastened, the shirt hanging loose like a tempting hairy peep show – which made this beyond confusing when he sat in the chair, began putting on his worn leather boots. 

“This is … crazy,” Chuck muttered. Though, if there could be any silver lining, he thought, at least he may be able to take Casey’s shirt one more time tonight. 

“Can you wait for me?” Casey asked, his eyes dragging over Chuck’s legs, up to his face. “Stay here?”

Chuck’s head jolted. “Stay here? Like this? Uh, no. No, no, no.” He tried to keep his voice even, cool, but it had risen. He would’ve climbed up off the bed to grab his own shirt, reclaim an ounce of dignity, but Casey now stood up fully clothed in front of him, while the kid had never felt quite so naked. He wasn’t sure his legs would hold him. “I don’t understand you sometimes. Well, hell. Who am I kidding?” the kid added. “Almost all the time.” 

From the flick of Casey’s eyes, he knew the other man was amused by that. Straightening his collar, he sat down next to Chuck and ran a hand up his shin. At the feel of Casey’s palm to bare skin, a shiver went through the kid, a frisson that he hoped Casey hadn’t felt. 

“What … are you afraid of?” Casey asked, fingertips lightly playing on his knee. 

Shit. Of course he felt it. How could he not? 

Chuck fidgeted and waved a hand in the direction of the ladder. “Just leaving me here like this? I didn’t think you were quite up to this level of humiliation, but I stand corrected. This beats out the first time, and that particular level of disgrace. But you made me tell you everything at dinner, so you knew that already.”

“Hey. You brought it up, brown eyes,” Casey pointed out, and Chuck noticed he tried to sound blameless. “I was just there to make sure you finished the story.”

The kid turned his head to him or otherwise Casey would purposely dismiss the peeved expression. “All right. Since you were looking for honesty tonight? Fine. I’m naked. You’re not. Seeing myself like this, while you’re like that makes me-” 

“Skittish, city boy?” Casey’s hand uncupped Chuck’s knee to take another trip down his shin. If it was a signal that he should move his arms from around his knees and put his legs down, Chuck wasn’t buying it. 

“Uncomfortable,” the kid corrected, but he did let out an easy breath as Casey’s fingers traced the curve of muscle along his leg. 

“Seeing yourself like this ….” Casey drew back, considering him for a moment, and then chuckled. “That was my point,” he said, his voice low. “I was trying to help you.”

Chuck’s nose crinkled. “You have very scary ways of helping, by the way. Not that I don’t appreciate help, because I would if it were the kind that – okay, I’ll stop. But here’s something else,” he said, nudging Casey’s thigh with his toe. “I don’t get it.”

Casey snorted, then softened the sarcasm by ruffling some chocolate curls on the side of Chuck’s head. He climbed off the bed, and took the swath from the back of chair, tucked it in one of his fists. 

“Wait … I thought ….” The kid’s eyes widened as Casey strode to the bed, standing in front of Chuck, slanting his head down to study him. The intent focused look - brilliant blue, mischievous – put a not unpleasant clenching low in his gut. 

“Trust me?” Casey asked. Lifting a hand, he swept the pad of his thumb over the kid’s bottom lip; it was warm against his mouth, and Chuck immediately felt foolish for his momentary lack of faith. 

“What I said earlier? I trust you … enough.” It was downright impossible not to take Casey’s thumb, bugging the crap out of him by swiping back and forth, and give it a playful bite on the tip before he gave it back to him. “That still applies.”

The look said that he noticed Chuck didn’t trust him enough to unbend his knees and lower his legs, but hey – baby steps, the kid quibbled to himself. Besides, if Casey was looking for a bold Lothario to hole up with while he was on the run, he should’ve made camp at another farm far from this one. Kansas, maybe.

Chuck shook his head and tried to focus straight ahead. That didn’t quite work, since Casey had leaned towards him, his placket yawning open, giving a view down a patch of hair narrowing to his stomach. 

God, he should really unbutton that shirt again. 

“You don’t have to treat me like the naïve kid you think I am,” Chuck said. “I know what I’m doing.” 

“Good, because the night’ll be damn short if you decide to faint on me, brown eyes,” Casey answered. It was a tone Chuck did not appreciate, but his attention was now fixed on the strip of fabric he had not put down. “You don’t have to be so afraid of me. Not going to hurt you.” Casey followed that statement with a flash of a smile before it faded in the dim light. “You might decide you like it.”

Chuck cast a puzzled glance up. “I might decide I like what, exactly? Flaunting myself? I have to tell you, in the few days you have left here,” – and now was not the time to deal with the little pang twisting in his chest – “I don’t think that leaves enough time for me to change the way I am -”

“Not that,” he said. “Hoping you … might like this, kid.” 

All he could recall before the room turned into an opaque darkness was the blue chasing deeper blue in his irises. Before he could bat an eye, Chuck was consumed by it, all around him, a sea more disorienting than frightening.

“What the hell are you doing – hey!" Like a wild colt, Chuck jerked his head back as the cloth crossed his temple, over his ears, experiencing a harrowing blink of resistance when he felt the tug at the back of his crown. “Hey, I – I can’t see!”

“Hold still. Don’t want me to get any of those crazy tufts stuck in the cloth, do ya?"

“Ow!” The mattress shifted and sank with a new weight, maybe Casey moving behind him.

“Can you hold still.” 

Why did he obey? But he did, some part of him deciding that he liked his hair attached, and that Casey was not the most careful person even when he might be putting some effort into it. 

“Whatever you’re doing back there, gentle … gentle ….”

“This isn’t gentle?” For a brief second, a finger – or was it his lips? – grazed the bare skin under the loose hair at his neck. But after that languid, soothing touch, Casey’s hands worked quickly, tying off both ends into a knot. It wasn’t tight enough to hurt, Chuck had to concede. Casey meticulously avoided the spot on his upper temple, hidden under a few wayward locks of hair, still slightly tender after falling out of the tree. 

On the other hand, it was tight enough to stay put. When the band was secured, Casey wrapped an arm around Chuck’s middle from behind and pulled him against his broad chest, trailing a hand down to his lower belly, his ribcage. So close, pressed to him, the kid was certain he could feel his heart hammering. 

“You’re … warm, kid. Don’t tell me you’re spooked.”

With Casey on his knees behind him, the kid had to blindly half-turn in the direction of his voice. “You blindfolded me, so yes, I think I can say I’m nervous! Oh, and while you’re on that topic. Answer this: are you out of your freaking mind?!”

Casey made a soft sound of amusement as an answer. Chuck barely registered it. All he could feel was the warmth of Casey’s breath ghosting across his cheek, a hand reaching out to touch his jaw. 

“You didn’t want to see yourself like this. Naked … waiting for me. Made you want to duck and cover, didn’t it? Well, seeing yourself isn’t an issue anymore.” The other man’s fingers curved around the back of his neck, making him jump. “Like how I solved your problem for you, kid?”

“Has anyone ever shared with you that your logic can be a little, oh, I don’t know – cock-eyed?!”

“Don’t care.”

Beneath the blindfold, Chuck squeezed his eyes shut, the rushing heat of Casey’s warm hand filling his senses. Okay, Casey was testing him. Seriously wanted to know if he really did trust him. That had to be it. Admittedly, his own logic had to be tangled up a bit, thanks to his cock throbbing hard, trapped against his flat stomach, because what was worse? That Casey had used a strip of cloth to blindfold him without asking, or that he was still willing, trustful … maybe curious – to see what he would do next? 

The kid blushed at the thought. “This … solved my problem?” Reaching up, he ran his hand over the side of his head, feeling the nubby cloth under his fingers – until he felt Casey take them – gently, God, he was being gentle – scoop them up and hold them in his. “Okay, fine. I get the hint. Hands off for now. But what … what are you talking about?” 

“This is your cover. You want to hide?” Casey asked, and oh God, were those warm lips nibbling at his neck? “Feel like you need to run away from yourself … from me? This is how you can do it.”

“I shouldn’t … have to hide from you,” Chuck said, swallowing under the touch. 

“Good thinking. My point, too.” As Casey trailed his fingers along Chuck’s bare shoulder, the kid felt his muscles loosen just beneath the surface where they had been drawn taut. The feel, that heated palm over his skin and not seeing him, not seeing his eyes lingering in the path, made his body thrum with awareness. 

It shouldn’t feel intoxicating, like diving into a warm pool of water. Was it wrong that it was? That for once he didn’t care, figuring that the sexiest thing ever to happen to him was, well, never, and as long as he was safe, he could do this? 

“Feels … good. Whatever you’re doing there ….”

His fingers dug in, and Casey said quietly, “Trust me enough to stay and wait?”

“I still don’t - oh. Oh,” Chuck breathed, tilting his head to the side. “But what … are you doing, anyway?”

“What does it feel like?” Yes, it was obvious, so perhaps the better question was why. Casey’s hands swept over his shoulders, that demanding touch channeled into firm strokes, burrowing into muscles, massaging down into the dip of his lower back. “Jesus. Regardless of your status, princess, you are as tight as a virgin right here. I’ll take care of some of those kinks in your shoulders.”

The kid opened his mouth, but was cut off with some particularly blissful kneading, sweeping circles on his lower back. “Ah. Oh, hell. I … I would tell you how crude you are, but you may st-stop doing that, and I really don’t want that to happen ….”

Because who could be bothered by a blindfold when the man had hands like that – all restrained power and need, bound with an oddly tender touch. Chuck let his shoulders drop as Casey’s hands rubbed between his shoulder blades, dragging down almost to the slope of his ass, squeezing firmly. The kid had never had a man who could find places on him deeper than flesh and muscle.

In an elusive, hazy part of his mind, it occurred to him that Casey was doing all of this with a purpose. He wasn’t an idiot after all, though, if he could see himself like this – blindfolded and naked – with a man like John Casey loosening yet tightening everything inside him, the point of utter idiocy could be argued. 

The only thing that mattered was getting more of those strong hands across his back, his shoulders, anywhere he hadn’t been touched in forever. Without thinking, he unfolded his long legs that had been hugged to his chest, and lowered his feet to the floor. It gave Casey further access to as much of his rangy back as he wanted to take, because, God, those hands. Lowering his legs would also give him a view of his obvious and stiff erection, rising fast and hard at every touch. 

“Better,” Casey observed, seeing that the kid had felt brave enough to put his knees down. “You like this?”

“I don’t know exactly what you’re doing back there, but you have my permission to keep doing it.”

Another deep laugh. Chuck had to pause, giving a questioning look under the blindfold. Had he said something funny? That query scattered like dry leaves when Casey found a sensitive spot along his spine. Were those his lips, moist, soft? Was he kissing him there?

Chuck let out a sigh and tipped his chin down to his chest. It didn’t matter. It was warm, smooth, and when his lips touched his skin, Casey made him feel things he’d never thought he’d trust anyone enough to feel. This realization blew him away, and made him more bewildered than being in a dark place with a man he didn’t quite understand.

Then he heard, “Kid, I mighta lied to you.”

It took a moment to really hear the words. A few seconds were eaten up, going from utterly loose, bones and skin opening up under the gentle caress, to lurching back and angling his face past his shoulder. “You …lied to me? About … this?”

“Easy, easy tiger,” he heard Casey rumble. His hand came up to cup his jaw, and framing his face, he ran his thumb over the stubble of his cheek. “Not what you think.”

Chuck blinked against that damn cloth, holding his breath. If it was meant to steady him, it was only keeping him off balance. Seeing his face would at least give him a clue, whatever he meant by telling a lie. 

The kid brought up his hand to yank off the blindfold. “What do you – ah.” 

Just as quickly, one of Casey’s strong hands slid around his chest and held tight. Bastard. He had to know that a hold meant to soothe him had the added effect of pinning Chuck’s arms down to his sides. It was a far different torment than the rhythm of a minute ago. And there was no sense in struggling or trying to slither out from that grip. When Casey wrapped his arms around something, the man knew how to hold on. 

But his powerful arms around him slackened some, silently telling the kid he was now free if that was his choice. His choice? His choice was for Casey to not leave. It was crazy, but the last thing he wanted was to tear free, give up the cocoon of those warm yet unfamiliar arms around him, feeling the flex of their muscles rippling along his chest. “Tell me what you meant. You lied?”

Casey chuckled softly against his neck, his hot breath tickling him there. The sound wasn’t meant to be cruel or to chafe him; it was a surprise in his throat that bubbled up red. 

“Settle, pancake.” Casey’s hands smoothed over his chest, his pecs, down to the plane of his stomach, even as he felt it re-knot. “Part of it is for you. The blindfold? One reason I did it ….” It was spoken in that husky voice, more serious than before. He paused. Chuck felt him shift. “I was thinking, maybe you’ll want to forget … you’re here with me tonight.”

There was so much hurt under that solitary thought that for once, Chuck couldn’t speak. One hand that he could move turned to touch Casey’s forearm, connecting with his skin. “What … what else? I’m listening.”

A hand traveled to the knot to test it, gave it a playful little tug. “Want you to stay here.” His tone told him it was safe here, somewhere safe, so Chuck could take what he wanted. “Won’t be long.” 

Chuck did his best to give shoot him a look, despite the blindfold, but he stilled when lips brushed under his ear. “That’s … not an explanation, you know,” the kid said.

Casey dragged the pad of a finger delicately across the hollow of his throat. “Well, partly … it’s because I like it,” he said in a bare murmur, an admission that crazily had Chuck’s pulse quicken beneath his touch. “You okay with that?”

Chuck heard what he didn’t say. Stop. If you want to say it, say it. 

A long moment of silence crept by as the kid considered the question. “I’m okay. For now,” Chuck said finally, releasing a breath that had tightened in his chest. “Though you might’ve warned me or told me before you … well ... put that thing on me.”

“Don’t look all offended, brown eyes,” Casey said, and now that Chuck had brought his legs down, Casey took advantage of the opportunity. He ran his palm down Chuck’s thigh, his thumb passing over the crown of his cock before he changed direction, brushing his fingers over his taut stomach muscles. “Because there’s one other thing I noticed.”

As his hand passed in a heartbeat over him, Chuck stayed still, letting out a slow shaky exhalation. “What’s … what’s that?”

Rough knuckles grazed his cheek. “You aren’t exactly taking it off now, are you?”

Chuck brought a hand up, pawing the air until he lightly smacked into Casey’s face “You’re teasing me … you have one of those smiles on your face. I can tell.”

There was another tug on the cloth, and this time it was brusque enough to force Chuck’s head to tip back. 

“I – what’re you – mmng.” 

The kiss sent the words back to his throat. Just as Casey’s lips coaxed his open, his tongue was induced into a slow waltz, playing, sliding until he felt his vitals coiling in a vulnerable place. When Casey increased the pressure behind them, the burning need, apprehension dissolved, exactly in the way the fog over his meadow bowed and rolled to the sun. Chuck’s fingers scrunched reflexively into the blanket, not touching any part of Casey, just his lips. Letting him capture, take, sliding his fingers into his thick dark hair, holding on. 

The kid half wondered if that was all he could take as well. If Casey would end the process of goading him into sexual willingness by just rolling him on his stomach, breaking control, coming into him as if he owned him …. Isn’t that what he remembered? 

“Yeah. Stay like this … it’s fucking unfair of me to say that, but I want you ... stay here." Casey pulled back to trail his fingers along the swath of cloth. “Can you do that for me? Don’t want you to change, brown eyes.”

The kiss was still making his lips tingle. Though he vaguely understood the scope of Casey’s words, his own burning hunger made the request impossible. 

Chuck had left that person in a damp cave, impossibly linked to another man, what seemed like years ago. 

-x-

By the time he crossed the yard from the cabin and returned back to the barn, no more than five minutes had passed. To him it was five minutes, anyway, but for the kid, it would have to feel as if time had dragged to an interminable stop. Casey had to wonder what was going through that mop head of his while he sweat it out. Sitting or maybe sprawled out naked on the bed, waiting for a type of intimacy he barely understood. 

The blindfold wasn’t a test, he told himself - knowing damn well, that’s exactly what it was. Hell yes, it was, and he should man-up to himself at least and admit it. A test of the kid’s trust, willingness, a measure of the distance his natural curiosity would take him ….

Casey put his hand on the barn door and guided it closed without a sound. Chuck took it off by now, right? Maybe even had time to reconsider his position, that if the night continued, he would have sex with a killer? Probably in the process of pulling his pants on, ready to hightail it back down the ladder. Had to be.

He looked up, listening. Nothing but a few soft clucks from the chickens. 

As Casey reached the bottom of the ladder, he took his holster off the barrel where he had left it, and threw it over his shoulder. It seemed astute to take it off earlier, what with the flash of fire and defiance in that kid’s eyes at the stand-off, but seeing that they would now be sleeping up there – very little, he hoped - Betty needed to be close by.

Putting a hand on the ladder, it occurred to Casey that no one had ever trusted him that much before, and he never gave them a reason to make that mistake. Fuck it. He didn’t need to be thinking about his own damn trust issues right now. 

Eyes up, shoulders straight, Casey took one rung, then another, doing his best to keep his boots silent on the climb. The kerosene lamp threw meager flickering light above him through the opening to the loft, creating shadows with the beams overhead, hugging every corner. The quiet darkness of the place closed in on him. 

He stopped, just one rung from the top of the ladder, and tipped his ear to listen. It only figured that Jackson, the kid’s half-dead sorry excuse for a horse, nickered at the one time he needed silence. He turned abruptly, almost shushing the animal. If it made another noise, he partly considered shooting the damn thing and taking it out of its misery, but the kid wouldn’t take kindly to that. Seemed to have a soft spot for the worthless hay-eater. 

Just another step or two now. When his boot quietly settled on the next rung, Casey poked his head through the gap, and his eyes landed on the makeshift bed along one wall. 

Hell, not the bed. Rather, the long-legged, taut body of the occupant of the bed.

He was still there. Kid hadn’t moved. 

Casey squinted at him. Okay, he had moved some, nervous energy overpowering his ability to stay put like Casey had asked. Like he had been caught in a delicious wrestling match between trepidation and need, and look which one came out on top. 

Staying frozen on the last step with his blue eyes fastened on the kid, for no damn reason, his mouth dried up. 

“God ….” He exhaled slowly, an inaudible growl masking his own need. “Why are you here?”

Because look at him. From across the room, it boggled the larger man. Why was Chuck willing to hold fast - because it would feel so damn good, or because of him? It couldn’t be unconditional acceptance that kept the kid there. Accepting all of him, seeing past the shit and dirt and every flaw underneath .... 

Regardless, there he was. Chuck sat on the pile of blankets, his shoulders curved against the wall behind him, one knee bent towards his chest. He had tipped his head back a little, seeming to stare up into space. 

Well, if he could see, because Casey was still blinking at the fact he had kept the blindfold in place over his eyes. Naked, bare, exposed, taken beyond any comfortable haven, but not looking up as if all the answers were there. Casey watched as Chuck shifted, one of his hands picking at the edge of the blanket, absently pulling on a loose string. His chest expanded and contracted a little too heavily, too rickety for someone at complete ease with the situation. The terrain of lean muscles flexed and tightened as he slid a hand around his nape and rubbed his neck. 

It bothered Casey that his knees were … jiggling. He hesitated, not wanting to give up the view of what he wanted to belong to him in every way. His bashful beautiful kid.

Of course, that was when the stair under his boot creaked. 

Ah, shit. 

Chuck lowered his head, turning in the direction of the ladder. He swallowed. “Hello? I can feel someone there ….” 

He was going to take it off now, wasn’t he? No one held that much blind trust for a man he met scarcely a week before under … unusual circumstances. 

After an unbearable pause, the kid sat up higher, every limb tense. “John?” Unsure, he waved a hand out in front of him, seeking warm skin no doubt. “I heard someone on the ladder, and if it’s not you … well, this is going to be kind of awkward, don’t you think?” Typical. Casey noticed the kid fell back on that tactic, trying to hide his jumpiness with humor. “Is … that you?”

Hearing his voice coated with a thin layer of fear, Casey felt a stab of guilt. He was an idiot for standing there for so long, taking in every inch of him. 

“Hey. Hey ….” He slung his pack from his shoulder and strode forward, took the hand swinging in the air. He entwined the kid’s fingers around his, set down his holster. “Nothing scary, kid. It’s me. Just me.”

Chuck slanted his head up and squeezed his hand. “I don’t know about that.” The corner of his mouth twisted in a half grin. “I’d say you have ‘scary’ pretty much covered,” he said, sitting back again. “That was … fast.”

“I can come back later if you want me to,” Casey told him. Just in case he had any ideas of not answering the suggestion correctly, he pushed a hand through his soft hair and shut him up with a kiss. It caught the kid off guard, not knowing Casey had brought his face down to him, but it didn’t take more than a half second for him to figure it out. The jolt of unexpected lips to his was answered when Chuck found the front of his shirt and wrapped his hand in the collar. 

God, once he got the hang of it, the kid could kiss. The first brush of lips made his cock jerk behind the fly of his jeans, his pulse stutter, and fuck, that never happened. Not a soft kiss anymore, not as it started with the intention to only smooth out his tenseness. It became demanding, making no pretense about the road they were going to take tonight. Lips parted, Chuck invited him in, and when Casey slid his tongue along his, he was pleased to wring a moan from the kid. 

His dick really liked that sound. Casey curled his fingers into Chuck’s biceps and climbed onto the bed, one knee followed by the other. Without breaking the kiss, he used the hold on the kid’s upper arms to make him sit up on his knees, mirroring the same position and facing each other. 

“What … what do you want me to do?” Chuck mumbled against his lips.

“C’mere.” Just so he knew what that meant, Casey’s hands increased the pressure on his arms and hauled him close, a move that had Chuck inching forward on his knees. Close enough to feel the ridge of Chuck’s erection, hard, over the front of his jeans. “Yeah … feel that?” he growled close to his ear. “Think you’re ready …? 

Chuck felt it all right, Casey knew, from the way the kid’s hand splayed against his chest had curled in, the way he drew in a breath. “I can’t see your face, but I think you’re smiling, because it should be kind of obvious? I want … this.” Sliding his fingers along the sculpted muscles of Casey’s chest, he went on to say, “I’m not afraid.” 

Casey’s fingers dug into his bare arms, and he smoothed his lips over his mouth, feeling the kid pucker too late. “You should take my shirt again,” he replied, pulling back. “If that’s what you want.”

“Are you going to take off the blindfold first?” Chuck’s hand drifted up, but instead of reaching for the strip of cloth, there was a gentle sweep over Casey’s shoulders. 

Shit. The kid seemed to understand the rules of the game without Casey forcing it. That if Casey was the one who put it on him, then he was going to be the one to take it off. And only when he was damn well ready to do it.

Casey took hold of the kid’s hand and brought it to the front of his shirt, itching to reach out and stroke him. But he wasn’t ready yet. Not for that, and not for the blindfold to come off. 

“Ever think about … seeing with your hands?” Casey suggested, low. “You okay with this? ‘Cause I bet you’d like it.”

A quick smile flashed and Chuck’s fingers fumbled over the buttons, already working on the second one. Even blindfolded, the kid’s dexterity improved each time Casey let him strip him, and he decided then and there that he was gonna let the kid get a fair amount of practice over the next few days. 

“I think you can be a bit of a bastard for not admitting who really likes it,” Chuck told him, but he didn’t fight it. Casey watched him finish the last button and drag his hands up the slope of his chest, slowly scraping over his flesh, bringing them to his shoulders. “Uh, can you hold your arms out for me?” 

Casey studied his face, what he could see of it, liking the way Chuck’s head was bent as if imagining the skin he wanted to expose. Liking the way his tongue peeked out of those pink lips while the kid tugged on a sleeve, signaling he was waiting. 

The vision of him, hungry, needy, sent a trickle of fire down Casey’s spine. Most times, he was fucking a man hard by now. It was different with Chuck, as if something hiding undisturbed for years had broken loose, spreading though his body and making this experience miles farther away than the others. 

Casey complied, lifting his arms one at a time for Chuck to feel his way down his sleeves, removing the shirt. “Take what you want, hot stuff.” He grinned at the way the kid reddened right up at that.

When Chuck slid it down his shoulders and flung the shirt to the side, Casey couldn’t care less that it landed in a heap on the floor. At the moment, he was too busy watching as Chuck reached out with one hand, blind and a little fumbly, to touch him. 

“I have to admit … it – it is different this way … different than the first time, when I could see you?” He moved slowly, too slowly, fingers tracing tiny whorls, past muscles of one pec, over a nipple and chest hair to the other. Pausing to explore the center of his chest, the kid flattened his palm and brushed it lightly over the springy hair. “Feel that.” Chuck whistled between his teeth and blurted, “God, you’re a hard ass.”

Casey had to laugh. “Hard ass, eh?” Wanting to take him by surprise, the kid’s nipples drew a long lick, then a tight swirl with Casey’s tongue. As Chuck inhaled, not expecting the sudden erotic play, Casey pulled back and replaced his mouth with the pad of his thumb. Swiped it back and forth over the tiny nub, eyeing the kid as he bit down on his lips. 

“Mm-hmm,” Chuck groaned. Yeah, that was it. He got him with the nipples every time.

“Not sure how you would know about that piece of my anatomy,” Casey said, taking one of Chuck’s wrists. “Haven’t gotten your hand on it yet, have ya?”

“… That feels so good ….” Chuck said, and with the touch on sensitive flesh, it seemed he hadn’t heard a word.

One more swipe, a pinch, and Casey’s hand stilled. “You didn’t answer.”

Though it was Chuck’s nipples being teased, it was his hips that had begun arching towards him. Did he even know that? His perfect cock, thrusting out to rub him in accord with every lick, every touch. 

Casey inched his knees backwards. There were so many more pleasurable ways of coming, losing control, and they only had three days to cover as many as possible. So the dick rubbing the kid seemed to be so good at could wait.

Chuck frowned at him from under the blindfold. “You st-stopped?” He circled a hand around Casey’s forearm, and seemed to steady himself. “I have to tell you … you’re not the kind of man I ever thought I’d … be with.”

The last thing Casey wanted right now was the kid’s head moving in that direction. Hell, not now. When Casey had Vic pointed down the trail, miles from here, that’s when he could contemplate the press of bare skin with a man from a world he didn’t understand. 

That was true for both of them. And the anticipation of hitting the trail never left him with a sour twinge in his gut, like the one bubbling down there now.

“You’ve already had plenty of hands-on study there, haven’t ya?” Casey said, glad that the kid couldn’t see his momentary consternation. “Thought you might want to go … a little lower.” Reaching down with the hand holding Chuck’s wrist, he placed the kid’s fingers on his upper abdomen. Then leisurely, he brought it down further until Chuck’s thumb landed on the waistband. “There are other things … you haven’t figured out yet. Places you haven’t found.” 

“Well, when you put it that way … did I tell you when I first got here – a year ago – that I used to take Jackson out for rides, just to see what was over the ridge? To – to the north, there’s a river, and an abandoned mine -” 

Babble. Here we go. The urge to shut him up had to be balanced, however, with the fact that while the words prattled out, Chuck was able to figure out where his hand should be headed. South. Because while he spoke, his fingers ventured lower, startling Casey by following the trail of hair, down to the front of his jeans. Keeping his hand over the denim where it was safe to cup him, fondle him a little less tenderly, he pressed in, fingers extending over the swell. 

Chuck’s brows slowly rose. “Oh. That’s … all I remember.”

“About what?”

He smiled, a sheepish one. “Um, whatever I was talking about?”

“You were talking about ridin’,” Casey reminded him.

“Riding? I think I’d like that.” He squeezed in, just at the right time.

Casey gasped at the touch– an actual goddamn gasp. Who knew the kid could talk dirty? 

He liked it. Wanted to hear it again later tonight.

When the kid did the thing with his hand again, Casey watched him, the way Chuck breathed out, biting down on his bottom lip. The way his hand took the shaft, fabric and all. Fuck … good hands. Nothing tender there, kid.

He swore he couldn’t get any harder, but the impromptu-blind-exploring hand job had him pushing into the kid’s palm. 

Yeah, feel that? Wanna hear you say it, brown eyes. Sometime tonight. That it’s too much to wait … that you wanna get fucked hard, up here in your safe hiding place. 

“Are you … you’re being awfully quiet.” Chuck let his hand drop to his side. “Is this … okay?” 

Casey couldn’t resist weaving his fingers around the kid’s hand and putting it back where it was. When Chuck got the answer, he smiled shyly at his momentary lack of confidence, and moved it lower, enfolding his palm around it, stroking. He took the whole concept of exploration seriously, like it was the first time holding a cock that wasn’t his. Really taking his time. Up, down, then slowly back up, a daring sweep that drew Casey’s balls in tight against his body. 

“Yeah, you can tell – I think you’re doing it all wrong, kid.” 

“What? I am? I thought this was what you -” 

“Christ.” To avoid having the kid move his hand again, Casey held on to it while he teased him, steering Chuck’s palm along the curve of his length, reminding him to get back to work. It was fortuitous that Chuck was a quick study. 

Closing his eyes, Casey bent his hips forward each time, lips parting with a hiss at the feel of those fingers. He imagined what it would be like with Chuck’s warm hand, bare skin to bare skin, swishing around him, circling the crown of his cock ….

“I get it,” Chuck said. Casey had no idea what he meant, but good boy, his hand kept moving when he talked this time. His thumb had found the ridge, despite the jeans, and he brushed side to side, flexing when Casey rubbed against him. 

“Yeah … that’s good …,” Casey murmured, hardly cataloguing the kid’s statement. Instead, he gave him more to hold. Needed to give a push into his hand, letting him think about the solid strength behind it ….

There was no doubt he had his eyes closed beneath the blindfold, wholly focused on the man’s cock in his hand. But after a few more flexes of his long fingers, something must’ve stopped him cold. His hand stayed still.

Irritation crossed Casey’s face as he glared at that piece of cloth and hoped the kid felt it. “Eh?”

“You weren’t listening, were you?”

“You get what?” Casey asked, proving he was, and ending the distraction with a small bite on his shoulder.

“Hey!” Chuck’s hand came up to slap him away. “No biting!”

“Doesn’t sound like stop,” Casey answered. He nibbled on his earlobe, down to his neck, his nose in the soft line of hair. Of course, at the same time, he had to put Chuck’s hand back where it was.

“Ah. Okay. Geez.” For a moment, he didn’t move, letting Casey press a kiss to his shoulder. “I … I only meant your sarcasm. I’m starting to get it.”

Casey grunted his congratulations. “Don’t know if you’re waiting for permission, princess.” – though the thought of the kid asking for it sent yet another bolt of heat through him – “but to pick up where the lesson left off, you’re supposed to take my pants.”

“See? Right there.” Chuck grinned. “Though in that example, the sarcasm could be mistaken for just your unruly impatience.” Maybe he had been paying attention to the pertinent directions nevertheless, since the first button was already sliding free easily. “Prepared to be awed by my dexterity. Blindfolded, too, I might add.”

Awed with him? The kid had no idea. Casey sucked in a quiet gasp at the feel of Chuck’s fingers working on his jeans, exerting some pressure. The buttons came undone, one after the other, and it was enough to make his cock surge against his undershorts. Finally, with a gentle motion, Chuck reached down and shoved the material away, freeing him. 

“God, yes,” Casey breathed, feeling the night air caress him, his cock hanging full and long between his knees. 

Casey was at a loss of words, however, since that was the only thing caressing him. What was the kid waiting for? Engraved fancy Boston invite? 

“You never did tell me,” Chuck said. “Why did you leave me here?”

“It was nothing.” Reaching out, he took Chuck’s hand. He had vowed to make this last, but seriously, the kid was going to do him in unless he took charge. 

“Really? Because I don’t believe that.”

“Find out soon enough. You still have faith in me, don’t you?”

“You shouldn’t ask a man wearing a blindfold that question.” Chuck let out a huff, but a tiny smile crossed his mouth, and he didn’t try to free his hand. “You might not like the answer.”

“Yeah, here’s an answer,” Casey said. “It’s my turn now.” He probably threw him off when he lifted Chuck’s hand, rather than leaving it in the very comfortable spot it had found. Then, starting at the center of his chest, he dragged it down over his warm flesh, wanting him to get a feel of every inch of him. His ribcage, his lower stomach – 

“I wish- ” Chuck stammered, pulling his hand. “I wish I could see your … face … when I’m doing this? So … is this okay?” He might as well had said, ‘Am I okay?’ 

The larger man just stared at him. For as long as he lived, Casey would never hear words that humble, making him wish there was no reason to leave this place. He couldn’t resist responding by taking the kid’s wrist, keeping the pressure to tell him he wanted his hand in a different position.

“Listen, brown eyes. If I ever do this,” and he closed their hands around his shaft, wrapping them tighter than Chuck would’ve done it, “that’s your permission to touch whatever you want.”

Chuck’s tongue came out to lick his lip – Casey had to smile at the reflex - and his hand began moving instinctively. It knew what to do, even if the kid was lost. His fingers took over with a slow stroke, as if testing how he felt from the crown to his balls, really using his hand to see. As Casey drew in an audible breath, a confident yet amazed smile crossed Chuck's face. And oh hell, the strokes quickened. Not by much, but enough for Casey to see lights behind his eyelids. 

“Does that … feel good?” Chuck wanted to know, unhurriedly cupping his balls. He gave a timid squeeze, one that made Casey’s cock twitch, and rolled his thumb up the sensitive underside to rub the tip. “Because … it does to me.”

“Then keep doing it.” Head spinning, Casey could only thrust into that tight channel of his fist, and only think of other tight, warm places ….

It felt damn good. All of it. But there was no fucking scenario where Casey was gonna come like this. To fix that, he focused on the night, the smell of the hay, the song of the crickets, anything to keep himself from spilling over like a kid. 

Naked and knee to knee with him, the cloth over his eyes kept Chuck utterly focused, and perhaps more daring than he would be. The kid felt like perfection. He did. And with the steady, long motions, goddammit, Casey felt like it, too. Like a swirl of heat on the coldest night; it was a cleansing from his brain to his cock, and he tried not to think about the kid who had done this to him. 

But as luck would have it, whatever was going on behind the blindfold caused Chuck to relinquish his hold, taking away the pleasure that had rolled through Casey’s veins. 

“What?” Watching the kid’s face, Casey sat up taller, jeans opened in a V, his cock suddenly feeling mighty damn lonely. It was then he noticed Chuck’s soft smile had faded, and though his world was black at the moment, he pointed his head down. 

Now what?

It took Casey a full thirty seconds before he could connect his brain with the uneasy expression beneath the swath of cloth. It reminded Casey of a farmer who was faced with stuffing ten pounds of flour into a five pound sack. 

Pancake, you have no idea, do you? Casey bit down on his smile on the off chance the kid could hear it in his voice. “You’re … anxious. About something.” To settle him, he leaned in and his lips touched the side of Chuck’s neck. “Tell me.”

“I think you know,” Chuck faltered.

Casey palmed his ass and gave it a motivational pinch. “Hm?”

“I -” The kid took a moment to swat at the hand fondling his backside. “Pay attention for a minute. Please,” he added, obviously struggling to find the words. “I do know what’s going to happen here … and … I was just … oh, maybe noticing that you’re -” 

“Just say proportional, kid, and leave it at that.” Casey shook his head at even having this conversation. “I’m not your damn college roommate. Is that what you’re trying to say?”

Chuck scowled. “If I answer that, I’m not claiming or denying anything ….” He let that trail off. “But … I’m not really sure ….” Now he made a motion with two fingers forming a loop, and another finger got busy in the center of it. “You know?”

“For Christ sakes, don’t finish that,” Casey said, batting his hand down. 

“Well, you wanted to know!” Chuck argued. “Now you know.”

“Listen, goddess, why do you think I went to get my pack?” Casey rose from the bed and tugged his pants all the way off, kicking them to the side. 

“Your pack?” The kid’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. “Why?”

“Do you remember the white willow powder?” Casey asked, digging through his clothes and ammo to find a small leather case. “The tea?”

“The one you made me drink after I fell out of the tree?” Two things happened right then. Chuck’s voice went up an octave, and he turned ghostly pale. “The … painkiller? Oh … oh my God oh my God …”

“Numb nuts,” Casey muttered, putting a firm hand on his shoulder before he had too much time to protest or spring out of the bed. “Will you listen to me?” 

Chuck pushed a hand through his hair, but at least he stayed still, willing to hear him out. “I thought the blindfold would go down as my most embarrassing yet hot, experience – not that there’s an abundance of history there - but you know what?” He pretended to think about it. “I think we just trumped it.” 

“Yeah, well, slow down tiger,” Casey answered. Putting his hands on the kid’s narrow hips, Casey guided him close again, setting the pack next to their knees as he fished out the case. “Got something for you.” 

“What is that? I heard a rustling noise. You took something out of there.” 

“Give me your hand.”

Chuck folded his arms tightly over his chest. “First you need to tell me what you have.”

Recognizing the stubborn set of his jaw, Casey rolled his eyes and relented. “When we were outside earlier,” he explained, “I told you about leaving home, cutting out on my own?”

“Yes, you were just a kid … and you left.” Expelling a breath, Chuck lowered his arm and reached for Casey’s chest. Fingers spread out, his hand stayed there. 

Casey hated the way the kid’s voice sounded. Like his damn heart broke for him – and nobody did that. “Put your hand out,” he said, no clue why it came out in a throaty whisper. 

Reluctantly, Chuck did as he was told, his hand drifting down, palm open. “Okay. There it is.” He wiggled his fingers. “Now tell me.”

His fingers were so warm, Casey thought, tangling them with his. But now that they were both naked, nothing compared to the slide and rub of his cock when Casey scooted forward. He shouldn’t … but he did it again, watching Chuck’s mouth open just slightly, keeping his head down. Damn, he felt it, too.

“After a week or two on the back roads, living on the generosity of a few farmer’s wives, I hitched myself up to a traveling doctuir.” Casey’s voice lowered. He wasn’t accustomed to explaining things like this. Like his past. “Needed a young stupid kid with a strong back who could help with the horses, forage for plants.”

“A doctuir – you mean a doctor?”

Casey snorted. “The term’s never been as loosely applied, kid.” At Chuck’s questioning brows, rising above the blindfold, Casey went on, “He was the lowest kind of hornswoggler there was. Sold his medicines to sick folk, and we left town in a hurry. Before the hellaboo could start.”

“But … the white willow bark? That was real – I mean, it worked.”

It was odd, like this, with the kid. The more he told him, the more he didn’t mind that he knew this much. He grunted at the realization, and wound his fingers more tightly. “I found out after a while, that in spite of being a crook, the man had learned a few tricks. Picked them up from the Sioux – that was his story, anyway.”

“Tricks?” Chuck still sounded hesitant, though one finger skimmed over Casey’s knuckles. “I’m lost, I guess. What does this have to do with anything?”

Gently, Casey used the hold to pull him close and leaned forward to kiss him. Just one, then brushed his lips across the kid’s, feeling their cocks skidding in the same way. “I noticed … there were couples … men and women, sometimes only two men … who were interested in this.”

“This?” Chuck tugged at his hand.

Shaking his head, Casey took advantage of the kid’s blindness by flattening his palm for him. “Your fingers. Loosen ‘em.”

“Can I get my hand back first?” 

“Nuh-uh. Hold still.” Casey’s other hand slid from Chuck’s hip as he reached for the bag. “Tell me what you remember.”

“About?”

“Your roommate,” Casey replied. “The dickhead?”

Chuck’s wiry muscles stiffened at the endearment, but good for the kid, because he didn’t shirk from the answer. “I don’t remember much at all. Only being … hell, I guess afraid is the word to use here. To tell you the truth. I felt like an idiot. And … it felt ….” He blushed as pretty as any man Casey had laid eyes on, though the reason pissed him off. “It was … rough and it hurt some.” Chuck cleared his throat uneasily. “In a way, it burned like fire.”

“Here.”

“What – I told you, I don’t want – oh.” 

Brushing aside a lock of hair from Chuck’s forehead, Casey pressed his lips to his; a brief, simple, kiss to unwind his taut body. With his other hand he poured a generous amount, then looped a slippery thin lotion in circles, around the kid’s inner palm. “You like how that feels?” Casey asked, the warmth spreading straight to his own groin. 

“Oh. It’s – not what I expected.” His fingers relaxed, curling slightly, letting Casey swirl it over the center of his palm. “Silky. It’s … nice, I guess. What is it?”

“Not important what it is, cupcake,” Casey replied coolly. He shifted his position, moving forward, lightly stroking his cock against the kid’s. “It’s what it does.”

At first, Chuck tipped his head, his lips puckered up while he thought about it. Well, score one for the genius, because it only took a few seconds before his head snapped back, eyebrows disappearing under the dark tendrils on his forehead. “Ho-Holy … okay. Alrighty, then.” He let out a pent-up breath. “I didn’t think I’d ever say this, but I’m really thankful for the blindfold at the moment.”

“Why’s that?” Casey asked, sliding a hand down one of Chuck’s arms, the elbow, before drifting in to caress his lower belly. 

“I think you have that smile on your face – the one that’s half smart ass and half – well, all smart ass.”

Casey smirked. In truth, he was just as red-faced for having to go fetch the damn thing at the worst possible time. In spite of that, it did give Chuck a chance to run from the one man who could be his biggest mistake. Seemed prudent since they were on borrowed time. 

The thing that rocked Casey from his hard- as-nails foundation was the kid had stayed. This stupid kid, made deep and pure and nothin’ like him, was willing to take a short journey, somehow thinking that bit of living would be worth it. 

The hand around Chuck’s wrist clamped down. He bent in, putting his lips to the kid’s ear. “Told you. You’d be okay.” Hurt you, hurt me.

“I … I know.” Tentatively, the kid thrust his hips against him. “Tell me … what to do.”

That was what Chuck wanted. Not rutting, not a roll in the hay. Taking and giving, push and shove back, it was the way he worked. The way he could make sense of it. Maybe what he was always missing before.

Casey ran a large hand up his thigh, his middle, then around his waist and down to trace the crack of his lover’s ass, fingers pausing at the lowest point. “That’s later, kid,” he whispered against the dark waves at his temple. With his other hand, he guided Chuck to his shaft, wrapping his now slick-covered fingers around him. The hard length filled his hand, and Casey felt a wash of heat when the kid’s automatic reaction was to bite down on the tip of his tongue, make a slippery path with his hand.

“God, you are ….” Chuck halted there. Casey knew he had shut his eyes tight and forgot to breathe. 

“Steady, kid. Right there,” Casey said. “You should help out.” He smiled dirtily, knowing he could get away with it. “You still with me?

“I’m … I think you’re pretty much stuck with me.” Chuck ran his other hand around him, over his ass, surprising a man who was never taken off guard. Since when did a sweet little kid like this feel a man up? Not that he was complaining, ‘cause everything now was electric and nerve endings flaring.

“Wasn’t considering it being stuck with you, brown eyes.”

Chuck pointed that smile at him, and Casey was pissed at himself for his insides fluttering. “John?” the kid said. “I know you wanted to make sure I don’t forget you. Tonight … making it different for me? I just want to tell you, even if it stops here, like this, it already is.” He bowed his head and found the crook of Casey’s neck, dropping a kiss that had a killer’s legs shuddering. “I already know, I’m going to remember everything about you.” 

The larger man drew in what air he could.

The point was, Casey would be the one who couldn’t forget. 

-x-End Wings of Grace Chapter Sixteen-x-


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

After the kid spoke, he went very still. The necessity of a lubricant was finally sinking in, and might’ve taken the sugar-coated dreams Chuck was prone to have to suddenly making it very real.

He was about to have sex with him. And Casey would make damn sure forgetting it would be the last thing the kid wanted to do.

At the same time, Casey didn’t want to pursue what was going on behind the blindfold, either. But whatever propelled Chuck’s thoughts, it disgruntled him that the kid’s hand, slippery with slick, had rolled to a halt.

“Nothing scary here, kid,” Casey said to him, dropping a hand on the kid’s cock and giving him a stroke. A reminder of something to replicate if he could just focus. “You should keep … doing that. What you were doing with your hands ….”

“Sorry … I was just listening.”

“To what?” Casey liked that answer, though, because Chuck’s hand fell to his waist, warm on his skin.

“The way … you’re breathing faster when I touch you.” His neck turned red at the observation. “I really like your body.”

“Have a little more of it, then.” Casey arched his hips forward to help him out, and then dragged one of his palms down Chuck’s arm, holding on loosely at his elbow. “Right here.” Even as he steered his hands, Casey watched the kid brush a thumb over his lower belly and trail his fingers through the springy pubic hair without flinching.

“Oh …,” Chuck murmured, flashing an uncertain smile when he found him. “Wish I could see your … face.”

“Keep going, kid …,” Casey answered quietly. He was certain the warmth would keep him from jolting, just as Chuck curled his hand around him, making it difficult to think or know anything after that. There was only that silky glide, the kid now stroking his fingers up the length of his erection from the crown to his balls. Really testing the weight and feel of all of him - and when he thought he wouldn’t jolt, goddammit, he did.

It had nothing to do with something as silly as the lube being too cool, or not being ready for him. Had everything to do with the timid experimentation of his hand, rubbing and sliding over him as if the kid could tell without words precisely the way he wanted to be touched, wanted him.

Casey realized his mouth had gone dry. Sucked into the sensation of a sure and steady hand on his cock, he rolled his head back and focused on the rafters overhead – just a few seconds longer – and exhaled deeply, fighting off the too-early tremors.

It had been a long time since he’d done it like this, letting another man touch him in a way that made the room spin too quickly. Not yet. Drawing it out wasn’t gonna work if he let those long fingers keep giving him a sensual torment that had to stop.

“Jesus.” Casey whispered it. Then gently but deliberately, he twisted the kid’s wrist and grabbed on to the other. Ignoring the sudden loss of what he badly wanted, he held Chuck’s arms down to his sides.

The half-face under the blindfold frowned. “Casey?” Chuck’s voice was bewildered, the abrupt halt snapping him out of the hazy sex fog that had already settled around them. “I can’t see you … so I don’t know if I’ve done something … wrong?”

Casey stopped his hand from slapping his own forehead. Only Chuck, only this kid, would need validation while his hand was wrapped around another man’s dick. It should’ve been obvious that with his palm running along the sensitive underside, closing around him firmly, that it would jack him off in no time.

“Kid? Here’s some news for ya. Forty-one isn’t twenty-six.”

“What … what does that mean?” Chuck tried twisting one of his wrists free, but Casey was having none of that.

“Reloading the rifle?”

Chuck cocked his head to the side. “Okay … I’m totally lost here.”

“I’ll spell it out, hot stuff. If you insist on doing that, the night’ll be over before the blindfold comes off.”

“So, it’s coming off?”

“When I’m ready.” To end it there, he pulled him in for another kiss, the first brush making his cock jump, his teeth catching on his bottom lip. The fact that Chuck couldn’t see his face, the way Casey was studying him when he pulled back, was an advantage he would hang onto for a few more minutes. “Here. Wipe your hand on this.”

Dutifully, the kid took the cloth. “Not as fun as the other place.”

“I’m going to remind you later that you think so,” Casey said. He tossed the rag on the table when Chuck was done. “Maybe again before breakfast, if you ask real nice.”

That was a beautiful sound, Casey figured, when the kid let out a laugh and pushed on his shoulder. The warm hand alone gave him a wave of pleasure, for the simple reason it proved Chuck was catching on. Underneath the sarcasm, the needling, Casey spoke a language no one else had ever bothered to catch on to. Others simply chocked it up to him being the biggest bastard in the county, and left it at that.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about this kid getting under his skin, though. Making it feel different. Like his hard flesh didn’t cover or fit him quite right anymore.

But then he looked up from Chuck’s hands resting on his bare thighs, and the kid’s soft grin faded slightly. He pointed his head at Casey as if he could see through him, and then he announced, “I have some ground rules for you.”

Casey looked down at the long naked body, there on his knees in front of him. Ripe for the picking – right now if he wanted to - and he could so damn easily.

Except the kid had sat back on his heels, his lips had firmed, and those hands of his weren’t moving.

“Now you bring this up?” Casey studied him, liking the way the glow from the lamp flickered over the side of the kid’s upper body, accentuating dips and slopes of bare skin. “I suppose now I’m going to get an earful of these ground rules.”

“That’s right,” Chuck said, blindly finding his thick wrists, circling, and holding on. Casey was reminded that despite the spindly arms, the kid had a bit of a grip. “I can’t see your face, but something tells me that … I might have your attention right now?”

Casey grunted, but let him keep the hands where they were, since he seemed intent to hang on to him.

“Good. I know you like to make the rules, but this is a democracy now.”

Hearing it like that, Casey started to open his mouth, but Chuck wasn’t smiling. As cool fingers slid across his forearms, he knew the kid was setting his own boundaries. Meaning if they were going to do this tonight – and hell yes, they were – they were no longer a hostage and an outsider, a misplaced kid and an outlaw.

Just two men. Only pale skin, a gangly body pressed to firm flesh, the overwhelming need to feel, to taste, to give and take.

“Your rules, pancake? What are they?”

“Here’s the first,” Chuck said. “Whatever happens tonight, anything I may say … or if I get … it can never be repeated outside these four walls. For the sheer embarrassment alone. Is that a deal?”

Casey smirked. “That depends on what you say. I might want to hear it again.”

“Which pretty much guarantees that you won’t.”

He let out a small laugh, because Christ, the audacity. “That so?” Bending forward, Casey lowered his head and sucked on the kid’s soft, tender neck, moving to slide his tongue in his ear until he worked out the gasp he was wanting.

Damn. Not that he’d admit it, but the challenge of taking this spunky kid, his rules and all, had his dick rubbing up against Chuck’s thigh, hips moving by themselves.

“What else?” Casey heard the roughness in his voice now that his cock found some friction. “Besides this, eh?”

“You – oh.” A steadying breath kept the kid focused on where he was going. “Another rule. I don’t want to talk about my college roommate again.”

“Done.”

Because everyone has shit they don’t want to talk about, and why churn up the past? Things that can’t be changed. Tonight’s about making both of them very happy men, and if it means that talk of the douche is buried, well, so be it. In fact, Casey would like to be the one to wield the shovel, dirt loads over that piece of work.

“That was easy,” Chuck observed, his hands loosening the hold on Casey’s wrists.

“Should I have brought a pencil to take these down, or are you about finished here, kid?”

“One more. This one’s non-negotiable. The last and most important, so I need you to pay attention.”

“Non-negotiable? Heh. Here’s one for you.” The serious look, even the half of his face he could see, was enough for Casey to pull him in and press a hard kiss on his mouth, a way to find that smile again. “My rule,” he mumbled against his lips. “I get to do this.”

“Mmph?” Chuck gave in to the kiss at first, letting Casey coax his lips apart, sliding into his mouth and tasting something sweeter than the strawberry pie they never had. He gripped the back of Chuck’s head, fingers entwined in his dark hair, and held him, just in case he had any thoughts of moving away.

Which it seemed he did.

A few seconds later, their chins bumped when the kid figured out this was simply a diversion. He shook his head and pushed against his tongue, and there mighta been a small shove involved.

“Mm – s-s-stop ….” Chuck gasped, and his palm slipped up to Casey’s shoulder, flattening out like a stop sign. “You have to listen to me.”

“I am listening,” Casey said, then his lips were back, the hard, rough kiss telling Chuck exactly who was in charge no matter what he had to say.

“Noph!” When Chuck jerked his head back, there was another push, this one more insistent. “Because what just happened there? That’s the epitome of not listening! Why did you kiss me?”

“You needed it, that’s why.” But the exasperated pout on the kid’s face stirred him to pull back and let us hand fall from the back of Chuck’s head. “Fine …. Let’s hear it. Non-negotiable?”

“This would be easier with the blindfold off.” The kid couldn’t see it, but Casey reached over his head to do just that. A moment later, his hand froze when Chuck shook his head. “No. On second thought, I just need to say it, and I don’t want to see, well - your eyes.

“My eyes?” Casey asked, absently running his thumb over the hollow of Chuck’s neck. “What about them?”

“It sounds silly, but I noticed … the way your irises swirl like storm clouds …? It’s usually when you try to fudge the truth, but underneath them, it doesn’t fool me. I can read whatever you’re hiding back there.” Putting a hand on Casey’s knee, Chuck gave him a quick wan smile. “Sorry, but I prefer the darkness to telling me a lie.”

Casey’s jaw hardened. “Just say it.”

“All right.” Chuck rubbed a few fingers back and forth over his kneecap. Under that mess of hair, the blindfold, down to his naked body, Casey swore he could see tension curling around him. “You’ll leave me in a few days,” the kid said, starting carefully, “and our lives will go back to the way they were … before.”

It’s dangerous to believe otherwise, less hurt, faster to get it over with.

It’s so fucked up.

Casey watched his lips and said nothing.

“My point is,” Chuck went on, the pace speeding, “that I don’t want you to tell me anything otherwise. I don’t need to hear that being with me is worth coming back for, got it? That maybe beyond this crazy week, our lives could fit together. And you may even think you’re being generous if you proposed it, just to make me think so.” A cool fingertip came up to his chest, skidded down, but stopped too soon. “You’ll think that I want to hear ’Maybe I’ll visit’ or ‘I’ll come back this way sometime and stay’. Well. Please don’t just say it. When the time comes, I don’t want to wait or wonder. Just leave, okay?

As the words played through Casey’s head, he realized how completely he had lost control, and his fucking mind to go along with it. He would’ve said it, too, all those things, low and pretty and exactly how he thought Chuck wanted to hear them.

“If that’s what you want.” Because Casey could do it that way.

“Well, it’s not what I … but if nothing else, we need a proper good-bye. Not lies. Do you agree with that?”

Casey made a noise of acquiescence, but enough of this shit. As he rose on his knees, he moved into him, bringing them chest to chest. There was a surprised yelp when he wrapped an arm around Chuck’s waist, dipped the kid down to the woven red and orange blankets, and circled two strong hands around his arms. Holding him there, he fixed his eyes on the kid’s mouth, then what the hell – why not? His lips descended upon him, growling into his mouth, immersed in the need and not thinking about what he had said.

Just leave. The last time someone told him what to do was his ma, but it was never like this. Everything about Chuck was shiny and golden, and Casey’s gut tightened at the realization he would do as the kid had requested.

And no lies. Casey clenched his hands into Chuck’s biceps, his mouth moving over his. He blocked it out, only feeling the sturdy man underneath him, the kid’s lean muscles strong enough to hold him on top. When his hand reached Chuck’s wrist, he closed his fingers around it, taking control of the intimacy by capturing him in another heated wet kiss, tongues tangling, lips nipping. His skin hummed with anticipation. It was so easy with this kid.

Running out of oxygen was the only thing that stopped him. After a minute, Casey pulled away for a breath and peered down at him. “What am I going to do with you?” he whispered.

The kid’s head rested on the pillow, and even though he couldn’t see, he was looking right through him. “Is that a yes?” Still held down, Chuck wriggled into the blanket, and then rocked up with his hips. It was half a question, half a smile, and would undoubtedly cause more rocking if he kept thrusting his dick up against him like that. “Or are you considering the alternatives?”

“You little shit.” Casey buried his head in the nook of his warm neck, drew his lips along the line of his shoulder, back up to his jaw. With his lips poised over the kid’s, not touching, sharing the same breath, he answered truthfully.

“I won’t say it, if that’s not what you want to hear.” The disappointment stayed muted in the night air, and it humbled him.

“Then you can take off the blindfold now,” Chuck told him, not moving. If it weren’t for that reflexive rocking against him, like he didn’t even know it, Casey might’ve told him how he felt about the mandate. Or hell, left it on him to prove a point.

So it almost surprised him as much as the kid when it came off smoothly in one pull, without taking some of that wacky hair with it.

It wasn’t because he already missed those dark eyes. Nope. It was just … the time to do it.

Chuck’s lashes fluttered before his pupils focused above him, straight into Casey’s. “You’re sexy as hell, don’t get me wrong, but parts of this can be a little imposing. The blindfold for one.”

“Anything else?” Casey gave him a slow smile as he lifted his upper body, straight-armed over him and looming.

This particular act of intimidation didn’t have the usual effect, because Chuck smiled up at him, lop-sided. Casey’s heart gave a kick.

“I think I can get used to the rest of the parts. They don’t seem nearly as menacing when you get to know them.” The grin broadened as the kid ran his hand up Casey’s elbow, over one of his tight biceps. “There’s other parts that I think I love.” A self-conscious blush rose up his neck. “Oh. But I didn’t mean – I don’t want you to think I’m here just because of this. It’s only … I think your body is, well, kind of beautiful. And I plan on touching it as much as you’ll let me … until you leave?”

Casey blasted that L word out of his mind – hell, it was a mistake, had to be – and leered at the kid’s flushed cheeks. “So far, this plan of yours has some merit, kid,” he rumbled, and lowered his head to kiss him again, just once. “Though I am finding out about your wanton ways.”

“My what?”

“Throwing yourself at every pair of broad shoulders that passes through here? I’m just another one of your playthings, eh? Use my body and toss aside when you’re done?”

“Hah. You made your point. But I should tell you, the only broad shoulders that have passed through here in a year were on a horse.”

Casey chuckled. “Wasn’t your type?”

“Hilarious.” Chuck rolled his eyes, and though he was arguing his righteousness, Casey couldn’t help but notice the kid’s fingers pressing into his upper arms, exploring the little dip under the bicep. And those narrow hips kept rocking up into him, dicks sliding together, and holy God, it was good.

“So, you do plan on using me, then?” Casey said, grinning.

“You can be a jerk, you know that?” His brow furrowed as he studied him for a moment. “I just think you should know, when I say I love your body, or think you’re beautiful, I’m not shallow enough to think just this.” He became somewhat more unsteady in the next words, and his hand brushed down to Casey’s knuckles, a finger playing over them. “I know there’s more to you.”

Twice he said it. Casey was certain that it had been years since he had heard the word merely uttered – as lit as a hot spark in the air between two people – let alone pointed at him.

The kid was wrong about one thing. Beautiful didn’t begin to cover the shy smile pointed up at him. It was incomprehensible that the grin from this kid could make his balls draw up tighter, more than the almost imperceptible rocking up against him. But between the smile and the tiny prods, Casey felt the beginnings of a delicious shiver travel through his limbs.

“For once, we have the same idea, pancake. What you said about touching a minute ago?” Casey reached up, grabbed the hand that had been playing with his arm, and stroked up firmly to the kid’s shoulder. “I plan on doing a fair share of it … maybe find out ... what you like.”

Chuck swallowed and looked up at him, two dark brown pools, deep enough to swim laps in. Hell, drowned in. “First, tell me … what I should do.” His gaze roved down Casey’s torso, followed by one of his hands. “Do you want me … like this?”

It took a heartbeat, hammering in his ears, to understand what Chuck was getting at but too prim to say. “Roll over,” Casey said, his voice barely a sound. He eased back and raised himself on his knees, allowing Chuck to move. “Need you to start face down on the bed.”

Part of the reason was that if Chuck gave him one more of those looks, lashes lowering, eyes burning through the darkness, Casey would want him all the more. That couldn’t happen.

Besides, Casey wasn’t sure he needed the memory, brown-eyed idolatry, packed in with the rest of the remembrances. The ones that would hang around in his head after he left. He didn’t need to watch Chuck’s face while he fucked him, inch by hard inch, until he was buried balls deep. Didn’t want to remember the way Chuck would sink his teeth into his bottom lip at each thrust, tip his head back and say his name on a broken breath.

Knowing all of this, there was no fucking desire to be haunted by the picture when the kid accepted all of him, only looking up at him through dark lashes and wondering why it had to be a man like this ….

No. Didn’t need that sifting through his dreams.

“You’ll have to stop looking at me like that, and actually get off of me if … if that’s what you want,” Chuck said.

“That’s what I want,” Casey answered, and climbed off him. “On your stomach.”

Christ Almighty. Even after the impromptu blindfolding, which should’ve sent him fleeing, there he was, the most awkwardly handsome kid he had seen since casting nets in Lafitte, giving Casey one long look. Nervously, he pushed a hand through his hair, contemplating …

– and then did exactly as he was told.

Watching him roll over on his stomach, Casey’s attention was held by the way his body moved; wiry muscles rippling and bunching across his back, down to the tight flex of his buttocks. That rounded pale ass was pretty enough for Casey to tease the crease with his fingers. Firm yet supple. He started with his hand brushing the top of the slope, and after a few strokes, he slid a finger down further. Slowly.

“…Gah … oh, God.”

“Hm?” Casey lifted a brow, noticing that the kid’s fists were balled up in the blanket. More bewildering, his head was pointed to the side, eyes squeezed shut, which had nothing on the way his legs had scrunched together.

Not exactly the picture of lustful willingness Casey envisioned.

Letting his eyes travel over the lean, taut path of skin and muscle, Casey waited to see if he would move. Nothing. Squinting down at him, he crawled over Chuck on his hands and knees, facing a mess of dark curls, the tender side of his neck. He lowered himself over that tense body and brushed his lips against Chuck’s ear.

“Kid?”

“Mmm?” His eyes remained screwed shut, not even looking up.

“I don’t know what you think I’m gonna do to you, but I’ve seen sliced logs from Temple Fork less rigid than you are right now.”

One eye cracked open. “Temple Fork?”

“Sawmill in Logan Canyon.”

“So … that’s a joke?”

Unable to resist the urge any longer, Casey dug his fingers into the swell of a sweet ass cheek. “Not even close.” To prove his point, he used the hold to try and joggle that firm flesh. “Feel that? I could bounce my two-headed nickel right there. Probably get decent height, too,” he chuckled, giving him another little squeeze.

“Sorry,” Chuck said quickly, but his eyes closed again. Fists reflexively tightened. “I know you’re telling me I need to relax, but I –”

“Shut it,” Casey said gruffly into the available ear, then softened his voice and added, “What do you want me to do?”

At least that got a pair of brown eyes pointed at him. “I get to choose?”

Casey’s long body was still on top of him, so he had to pull back just to see his face. “Yeah, that’s what I’m asking. You should … tell me.”

A hand unclamped the blanket while Chuck considered the answer. “I wouldn’t mind a back rub – since you’re right there on top of me?” He took a breath and added bashfully, “I like your hands. They’re big enough take over everything. They make me feel safe here.”

Safe, he had said. The other man’s words were lost in his throat. So instead, he kissed the fine bone leading to Chuck’s shoulder, down his smooth midsection, over each rib.

And then straddling his thighs, those big hands Chuck had asked for got to work.

“Oh … that’s … ooh.” Sinking into the mattress, the kid shrugged his shoulders side to side. “Right there … no, down a little, down ….ah! Ticklish! Not there! Up, back up … stop – no, I don’t mean that. Keep going, keep ….” Now Casey heard a content sigh from his lips. “God … you’re ….”

“Yeah?” Casey dragged his fingers over his lower terrain, his ribs, pressing. “Didn’t know the job description included being your servant, cupcake. You should’ve said something before now. Seems to me, we wasted damn near a whole week.”

A relaxed Chuck was one who could hear a lewd insinuation without blushing, it seemed. Instead, he opened his mouth to say something, but it ended with a groan, just as Casey dug his fingers into a stiff muscle over his shoulder blade. “You make it sound like it’s a bad thing,” he mumbled happily.

“I could think of worse,” Casey agreed, bending down to touch his lips over Chuck’s smooth nape. The kid’s body had gone slack, the payout for having big hands that could ease tension along a lean ribcage without burning off the hard-on he’s busy grinding into the Navaho blanket.

Did he even know his hips were working as if it was Casey’s hand that he was grinding into? Wriggling them like he’s finally ready for Casey to spread his legs apart, gradually bury himself until the boy gasps?

Against his lover’s neck, Casey smiled and made loops with the tip of his tongue. “You seem ready for more, button,” he whispered in the closest ear. “Want something besides what you’re doing with that blanket?”

“Sorry. Again,” Chuck muttered. His hips stilled. “When you touched me … it was easy to imagine … things. And, you know, I should stop talking.”

Casey brushed a hand down the center of his back, drawing to a stop when it reached his crease. Leaning over him, his lips traced tiny circles, nibbling at the slope of his neck. “If you're imagining what I’m gonna do to you, why are you as stiff as your half-dead horse?”

"Can't ... help it, okay?" Chuck made a small noise and shirked his head down on the pillow. “I … you’re the one who knows what he’s doing, and I’m the one who stayed here for this, even though you gave me a chance to leave tonight. That’s what the blindfold was about, right? Letting me choose?”

“Whatever makes you sleep at night,” Casey answered, giving away nothing.

“I also know you said you wouldn’t hurt me, but we both know you will.”

Kissing his hair, Casey lifted himself on his knees, hovering over the kid’s legs and staring at the back of that curly head. For once, he was stumped. “So, I’m lyin’?”

“Not intentionally,” Chuck stammered, “but I’ve been there before, though we’re not talking about that. It … does hurt.” It was damn frightening, the fact that Chuck sounded so sure of that. “But you can take what you want. I’m here, and I didn’t run away.”

What kind of a dickhead was the roommate, anyway? Immediately, he hated this Bryce piece of shit even more.

“Brown eyes, nothing has to hurt.” Casey attempted a light tone, though he had to wet his throat. He covered it by stroking a hand down the plane of his slender middle, dipping to his lower back. “Nothing will happen that you won’t ask for … over and over again.”

Getting up on one elbow, Chuck gave him a weak smile and swallowed at his touch. “I don’t believe it. That’s why you have to show me.”

That, he could do.

Casey dropped his hands on the blanket near Chuck’s shoulders, his knees on the outside of Chuck’s, and began kissing his way down the kid’s warm skin. Giving the narrow spine his full attention, the tautness slowly ebbed out of Chuck’s long limbs, deflating with each brush of his hand, graze of his lips. Slanting over him, Casey went lower, tongue trailing his middle, the hollow of his back ….

“Okay. That part? That feels … so good.”

The admission came with yet more wriggling and grinding into the blanket, but Casey made up his mind not to josh him about his sexual prowess tonight. Not when his big hands might be working. The slip-slide and grating of Chuck’s hips wasn’t quite begging, but certainly the grant of permission. Yeah, it’s time.

When Casey lifted up, his dick was perfectly placed over that tight cleft, which meant it took no effort for him to ride along the crease and let his length get caught between those two tight cheeks. Damn, he was so ready, struggling for air, but he wanted the kid to tell him he is, too. At the next slide, Chuck made an unintelligible noise that went straight to Casey’s dick.

“Like it, tough stuff? It gets better, if we do this.” Casey made the suggestion while he rubbed his cock into the crease, needing to give the kid a warm-up thrill. Or to take one. The overwhelming need to get friction sent a rush of sound to his ears … so easy, slippery, his lubed cock slid over the channel ….

Or maybe … not.

Only because Chuck’s butt cheeks had clamped together hard on contact, and Casey was afraid he’d lose some serious equipment if he tried to shove his God-given achy inches within that crease.

Holy hell, the kid had strong ass muscles, which would come in handy when Chuck had surrounded him, but now such tight resistance … did not cause the least bit of amusement.

Casey shifted on his knees and rubbed a hand over one of Chuck’s cheeks. “Afraid if I put my … thumb there,” and he paused to run it down the crack, “you may try to snap it off, eh?”

“Oh. Shit. Sorry – boy, I have to stop saying that. Am I … that bad?”

“Bad?” More like mine. Casey patted one of his rounded cheeks, and then ended with another squeeze. “No, but forget bouncing the nickel. Couldn’t even get it wedged in there on its side if I wanted it to.”

“Wedged? What -” Chuck turned his face to him, and up until this moment, Casey wasn’t aware of how his own urges had changed him. His cheeks flamed, ringlets lay plastered to his forehead with sweat; he was just as ready. “Not that I don’t appreciate your humor, but let me guess – this is your way of telling me to relax again.”

“That’s not gonna work with you, kid,” Casey said, smoothing a hand over the dull red mark his fingers had left on one ass cheek. “Got another way.”

“How is your way going to – ah.” The question dissolved, broken into a yowl of protest as Casey snatched the kid’s hips and steered them in and up. The abrupt nudge and lift of his ass in the air and head on the pillow automatically opened the kid up where a minute ago, Casey would be hard pressed to stick a finger. To be certain, he slid one of his thighs between Chuck’s, and in a no-bullshit way, bumped his knees out wider.

“Stay like that,” Casey told him. He didn’t want to hear Chuck’s opinion of the directive, so he leaned over the kid’s back, bit him lightly on the shoulder, and tasted the mark with his tongue.

He liked that the back talk ended in a whimper.

“Yeah … better.”

“God … Casey.” All of the coordination required to stay on his knees, while rising to the touch of lips on his back, wasn’t working so well for the kid.

It didn’t stop Casey from thinking it was hot as hell when Chuck solved his own balancing problem. As if holding onto the last of his stubborn practicality, the kid brought up his hands to the headboard, gripped two slats hard enough for his knuckles to whiten, and hung on.

Christ. If Casey had any blood left in his brain, he would’ve suggested that move himself, because just watching the kid stretch his arms out and brace his hands on the slats had need coiling hard in his stomach.

Casey swallowed. He was staring and it didn’t matter. Naked, thighs splayed, his head bent down on the pillow, nape damp with perspiration. Everything about the kid was soft. Yet tight. And though Chuck smelled clean and sweet everywhere, Casey wasn’t going to start him off by licking him there. Nah. He had done it once or twice – the man and the circumstances eluded him, though there may have been moonshine involved – but using a few fingers and the oil got the job done without needing a trip to the creek before he kissed that full, soft mouth. Because that’s what he was going to do. Hold him down and kiss him all over while Chuck was moaning helplessly …

After he made them both come like Chinese fireworks.

“You wanna hang on?” Casey burrowed his nose in the dark curls over Chuck’s neck, and trailing one of his hands down his bicep, his forearm, he laid it over the kid’s tightly clasped hand. “That make you feel … safe?”

Chuck made a muffled whimper, loud in the cool air of the barn, and it blew away any last bit of Casey’s control. His lips drifted lower, nipping, biting into the flesh at his spine, his back, feeling the kid’s breath hitch. Then sinking his teeth into a firm butt cheek, Casey reached around one of Chuck’s thighs and circled his hand over that nice curve of his cock. Fit his big palm perfectly, and right then, he only wanted to make him happy.

Maybe he did, because when Casey gave him a few strokes, Chuck bucked his hips and pushed back, a taste of warm skin meeting his lips. “I … that’s – God, keep doing th-that.” The words could barely come out. Not with the way he was hanging on tight, swaying into him.

“Easy … sunshine …. You like it?” With his other hand, Casey reached for the small tin and smeared the lube on a few fingers – hell of a thing to do one handed, but he wasn’t about to let up with the strokes that had the kid stuttering and rocking. It was a complete surrender without one bullet flying. “Kid, I’ve got to tell you to slow down, or this’ll be over before the real fun starts.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Chuck managed. Hair was standing up in places like whorls after a windstorm. Though he was loathe to admit it, the look was considerably adorable, and he’d love to flatten it down later when the kid lay there quietly panting, drifting off to sleep.

“You need to stop saying that.”

“Then you … you have to stop doing that – but I don’t want you to. Just … j-just please keep going … .”

Every sigh and groan from kid had encouraged him to continue, but please pushed him to a new outer limit. “Yes, sir,” Casey breathed, knowing the humor would be lost on the kid. A finger skated down his crease, drawing to a stop, circling, liberally coating Chuck’s tight little hole. “That better?”

“Mmmph.” All it took was a little pressure, some additional attention to that sweet spot, and Chuck answered it by using his grip to back into him. “Feels good … d-do that.”

Jesus, the kid did want it. And Casey didn’t hesitate, since he wanted nothing more than to give Chuck what his body was begging for.

Gradually, his finger dipped in, up to one knuckle and back, testing. “Can’t wait anymore, can you?” Casey murmured, and this time the second knuckle got past the ring of muscle. It was kind of impressive how snug he was, which Casey took as proof of the near-virgin story. He couldn’t help but feel a bit smug, however, that the messing around had worked so far, since on the next loop, one finger slid in so easily.

Chuck tightened his grip on the slats and rocked clumsily, not hard, but enough to let him know it didn’t hurt. At the next push, he groaned and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Like that, kid?” Without getting resistance, he slipped it out and all the way in again. Back out, a slow thrust repeated. “God, you are tight, brown eyes ….”

“Oh … oh shit ….” Chuck puffed and rocked into him.

“Need more?”

Some instinct had the kid nodding, mouthing something that looked like fuck … yes.  
The challenge made him reach for more of the slick stuff, while his dick inadvertently rubbed a butt cheek. Okay, maybe on purpose. But he couldn’t help it, not at the thought of his cock being clenched and surrounded by something that tight and warm. Being needed.

A thick thumb replaced his finger, teasing the rim, and pressed. Resistance had burned away. It went in easy. Helped by the fact that Chuck did his own pressing, using his braced arms to push himself right back into his hand.

“You … got some grip on that, kid,” Casey said, delivering that with a little prod. God it was sexy as hell, too, with his hands still wrapped around the slats, seeking an anchor when they hadn’t even pushed off yet. Bare, knees spread, the kid pushed back one more time, a silent way of telling him how far he could go. Perhaps his city boy didn’t realize the extent of his willingness, being that right now, Casey was buried deep.

“Oh God …. Ca-sey. S’ good.” It was getting harder for the kid to talk, seeing that Casey’s other hand kept up the slow rhythm on his cock while giving him two fingers at his entrance, finding nothing but total surrender. “Want … you to show me the rest.” His voice broke. He’s about to beg. “Don’t wanna wait.”

That was … close enough.

“Want to … feel good, kid?” Casey replied, fingers still riding on Chuck’s length. “Not gonna let you forget this time … think you can remember what I feel like ….? My cock inside you?”

There was an indisputable answer when Chuck used his knees to back up and rock. Only fingers so far, nothing else in that tight little heat yet, but he had to give the kid points for effort.

“Hot little maighdeen, aren’t ya,” Casey said under his breath, pulling a cheek and reaching with the pad of his thumb, massaging his entrance. “Never been told you have a pretty ass, eh.”

“Fuck, John ….”

Like the kid was ordering him. Though for that, Casey could comply.

“Yeah …? So ready ….” Taking his dick in one hand, he snubbed the broad crown against the opening his fingers had loosened up a little. The kid was still tight as hell, but the exhilaration of the ride, when it’s done right, could blot out the temporary searing burn that Chuck was bound to feel.

And as much as he wanted to bury it balls deep into Chuck’s ass, until his thighs rubbed against the kid’s, he controlled the urge. Rather, Casey leaned in, slowly and carefully, pushing inside, and everything about the kid – his goofy smile, his ridiculously transparent expressions, those sharp gawky angles – enveloped him.

Oh … like that.

Going deep and hard was what he had sought since the day up in Chuck’s room, watching the kid grudgingly undress in front of him. The nervous virgin scenario had him stiff for days, making him want to fuck that demureness right out of him.

But up in the loft, heady with the scent of fresh hay and male arousal, it wasn’t a dream or a lewd tease. Real as the warm tight body swamping him as he inched into his ass, his other hand playing with Chuck’s balls, strumming him higher and higher ….

Wanted it. More than Chuck’s body, writhing under him.

“Is – ah - there a way you can … wait,” Chuck faltered. His head bobbed up as he glanced back at him, his eyes half-lidded, glazed. He knew Chuck wasn’t trying to get away, but he couldn’t help but watch his hands give up the grip on each of the slats, coming down to clutch the pillow. “I mean, can you h-hold on … give me a little bit of time?”

“Tell me you’re not serious.”

Chuck made a sound like yes and shut up. “H-hang on … okay?”

“You’re priceless, goddess, just priceless,” Casey said after a moment. “Yeah, I’ll just stay like this.”

The fingers of one hand dug into a firm cheek, steady … steady, and he tipped his head back to count the rafters. Anything. That deep clench into the kid’s warm flesh was the only thing stopping him from pretending he didn’t hear those words. Made him tamp down on the urge to pound into that beautiful ass until both of them came so hard, nothing holding back.

But it reminded him that more than Chuck’s flesh was under him. Things like trust, faith, or really wanting to please him had gotten in the way of a solid fuck. He tried not to think of the last time that had happened.

Never came to mind.

His dick’s half-way to bliss, one sturdy thrust and he’d penetrate home, making Chuck forget the knot of tension firing through his belly. Luckily for the kid, however, Casey had enough presence of mind to understand why Chuck was biting down on a few of his knuckles, breathing heavily through his nostrils. The first fuck after a year or two could be a kick in the ass. Though Casey was only speculating here.

Okay. Twelve rafters. There were twelve. It killed him not to move, but the only muscle that flexed was along the back of his neck.

“I know … you’re sick of hearing it – but sorry, again.” Chuck closed his eyes and scrubbed a hand over his forehead. “And thank you for not just – well, I know you want to … but I need to get used to this, okay?”

He heard a note in Chuck’s voice that stabbed him. Coated with a little pain. “Pancake, breathe like that. Steady,” Casey said softly. A large hand coasted down his spine, digging in, kneading his lower back. The hand on Chuck’s cock slid over him, thumb around the crown, but the kid barely moved his hips, knowing that would get him more of what was causing discomfort.

Hell, he wanted to, though. Casey could feel him quivering, knees so tempted to shove backwards, to push his dick along Casey’s hand.

Being caught between heaven and hell is a bitch, ain’t it, kid? Truth was, pleasure and pain were simply two edges of the same knife.

“God … Case … Casey.” There. He pushed back, and there was a cut-off sound.

“Easy … brown eyes. Yeah, that’s good.” His hand circled the kid’s lower back, fingers digging in harder than before. He hoped it could distract him until his body adjusted to something it hadn’t felt in a while. “There’s another way I can help you, kiddo. You’d like that.”

“Wh-what?”

“C’mere ….” Casey wrapped an arm around the kid’s waist and eased him up slowly, tugging him until Chuck sat on his lap. More like half sitting, Casey guessed, because he didn’t have the courage yet to just let go of the tension in his legs and lower his ass onto him.

“Oh … that’s ….”

“You good?”

“God, yes … it's not as - ah.” As Chuck rasped it, he shifted, lining up his knees on the outside of Casey’s. The thighs curved against his own, the posture forcing him to spread wider in order to straddle Casey’s legs. It reminded Casey of a bird slowly opening its wings, and something told him the kid would like the feel of that.

“Want me to show ya … how good you feel?” Casey whispered in one ear, his dick pulsing, surrounded in his heat. It would be so easy to use the arm around his waist to lower him gradually, but Casey decided then and there it would make the pleasure spill out of him to watch Chuck do that on his own.

That meant instead of driving him down or grinding up into his ass – God, he wanted to - Casey pulled him close, bringing Chuck’s back against his chest, lean angular shoulder blades digging into his pecs. Took some pleasure at the feel of a nice firm body plastered to his.

Listening to Chuck pant deeply, Casey’s fingers toyed with the sensitive spot just behind the head, stroking the vein that ran along the underside. He knew it felt damn fine, but the kid confirmed it by dropping his head back on Casey’s shoulder and closing his eyes.

“You do t-too ….” The kid’s tongue came out to wet his lips. “Wow … keep doing that.”

Casey did, because it’s too beautiful seeing him like this, to stop. Chuck, sweaty skin, so warm against him, his hair curled in wild strands, damp on his temple. He kissed him there, let out a calming breath on that smooth neck.

“Easy, kid. You can hold on,” Casey persuaded. He wrapped his arm tighter around his midsection, and lowered his voice to add, “Not ready to have you come just yet.”

“Do … do I get a vote?”

Casey chuckled against his ear. “Your democracy just got overthrown, kid.”

“God, you’re a dick head.” Chuck said it without rancor, for somehow he knew Casey was just yanking his leash. He rested his head on Casey’s shoulder, sinking into the feel of the larger man running his knuckles lightly over his ribcage. “What’s n-next, then, if you’re the one who just staged a revolution?”

Full invasion, princess.

Casey smiled against his neck when he heard Chuck draw in a breath, and lowered him an inch. “Relax, okay?”

“Just … keep your hand d-doing that.”

“Then hold on to my legs.” When he did, Casey began stroking him again. “You good?”

“Mm.”

He took that as a yes, especially as Chuck closed his eyes and leaned into him, laying his head in the crook of his shoulder. Casey felt every sensation. He let himself float, holding him in his arms, feeling the kid’s long fingers now idly caressing his thighs. It slowly ebbed into his consciousness that they had begun moving together.

Chuck’s thighs rubbed against his own, making Casey feel the quiver of his buttocks. His rangy shoulders and chest lifted and expanded, reclining back into him with the weight of his body. The kid wasn’t a fragile waif - he did have meat on his bones - but at this moment, pressed against him, he seemed dangerously vulnerable. Needing protection behind a shielding wall of flesh.

Tightening his hold around his middle, Casey molded Chuck into the curve of his body at the thought, laid a kiss on the curve of his neck. His. He wanted to be the one to protect him ….

Until it had to end, at least.

He was still inside him as the kid’s hips slowly rocked. Sliding down on him, an inch or two that went for a hot mile. “Oh … that’s …,” Chuck opened his eyes and barely murmured, “You big bastard.”

At first Casey arched a brow at the back of his head. Then he had to smirk. Dirty babble? Yeah, he liked it.

“That better, kid?” he asked, relaxing the arm around his waist a bit and hoping the kid would take the hint to come down on him. “You okay?”

Chuck answered by drawing in a breath and rolling his head on Casey’s shoulder to look up at him. If those chocolate eyes had idolatry before, now they’re shining with hunger deep enough to pull him in. “Want … a little more.”

In a heartbeat, he could do it. Lift his hips, even from this difficult position, and bang into the kid. Watch him bounce on his lap, not stopping, making him feel the full size of him. Chuck would let him at this point, too. Hell, he’d be the one coming down on his cock. Wouldn’t put up a fuss if Casey started slamming the shit out of the kid ….

But another part of him knew he wasn’t going to be the guy to hurt him like this. Last thing he would do was cause pain. Tonight was about making it stop.

Casey dragged a hand over Chuck’s chest, through a patch of chest hair, following the trail downward over his lower belly. “You have to be the one, kid. Do what you want.” Taking hold of a buttock, he rumbled low against Chuck’s ear, “Want to? Maybe use those long legs…. Yeah, come down … a little lower … that’s it.”

When he felt those shaky knees moving, lowering his ass – only another inch –Casey presumed it was time to reciprocate, to lift his hips and meet him in the middle. He put his head back and braced himself, ready to deliver a nice prod ….  
Until -

“Oh … shit.” Then, as if he had read Casey’s mind, “Stay, don’t you move, okay … let me be the one … to do it.”

Casey’s head fell with a thunk against the back wall. “Hell … you do want to kill me, don’t you, brown eyes …?” he muttered. Though if one had to be buried deep, this was the way to go.

“No … I would never -”

“Got an idea,” Casey coaxed, slowing the strokes on that curved cock, just letting his thumb swirl the pre-come around the crown. “Paying attention?”

“Y-yes … mmph. God … oh, bite me.”

Casey suppressed a sexy laugh and answered that with one move of his hips. “You wanna go for a ride?” he whispered against his skin.

“A … ride?”

Tilting his head, Casey encouraged him with a lick on a warm spot at his nape, and since the kid wouldn’t know any better, sunk his teeth in a little. “Here. I’m going to straighten my legs under you and lean against the footboard.”

“Wha – what am I going to do?”

Besides wail like a tomcat on a summer night? “Stay there … like that for now. Let me do the work.”

Not leaving him, not ready to free himself of the powerful heat, Casey lifted him only enough to stretch his legs out on the bed and settle in under him. The footboard dug into the middle of his back, but he barely felt it, so wrapped up in the silky wetness of Chuck sitting on his lap, his feet straddling Casey’s thighs.

“Oh, God … can’t move too well,” Chuck said. “Just tell me, okay?”

“Give me your –”

“Gah. Hey, that’s my –” But he gave up on trying to figure it out, and his body went lax with compliance. “Go easy, geez.”

“Here, reach back. You need something to hang onto.” Casey took one of Chuck’s long arms and trailed a hand down until it looped the kid’s wrist. Stretching it out to the side, he placed the kid’s palm on the pine rail of the footboard. “Grab onto that.” Then he took the other hand and did the same. “This side, too. Can you do that, kid?”

Fuck, he did it without even questioning him. With the kid sitting on his lap, Casey took hold of Chuck’s hips, enjoying the view of his sinewy back, the way his knees spread wide over his thighs. Cloaking him in every way.

Maybe what he said a minute ago wasn’t exactly the truth, seeing that Chuck would be the one doing the work. In this position, it was more comfortable for the one on the bottom than it was for the young man getting ready to bring his ass down. With his back to Casey’s chest, feet on the mattress and arms slightly behind him, Chuck had the appearance of someone getting ready to do the crabwalk, except … he wasn’t going anywhere. As Casey had planned, making it cumbersome to hold himself there was kind of the point.

Oh, hell yes. He was going to come down. No one could help it. It would be either gravity or need that would eventually force him to lower his ass onto his cock. Like sinking into a hot tub, the temptation was too great, the intensity of the burning ache more powerful than the risk of getting scalded.

“Like that, kid?” Casey asked it huskily and reached around Chuck with one hand, closing his fingers over his cock. He caressed with long, firm strokes, drawing his palm all the way to the head, down to the balls. “Think you’re ready?”

Chuck leaned back against him, his head nestled against Casey’s neck. Eyes closed, lips parted, he rocked down on him, and Casey took pleasure from seeing the kid’s toes curl.

“… Oh. God…,” Chuck said roughly. “That feels … so ….”

“Wanna come down again, kid?”

“Fuck you … bastard … y-yes.”

Casey arched a brow and tried not to laugh. Later, he’d be sure to torment the kid about his choice of pillow talk, but on the other hand, he wasn’t sure Chuck would even remember the sweet nothings that fell from his lips. He only knew he wanted to hear more of it.

“Yeah … good,” Casey replied, and holding him, he took a breath and smelled the combination of Chuck’s scents; earth, the grass they had rolled in, and plain cleanness. “Time to go for a ride, eh?”

Thanks to a pair of long legs and a college-educated brain, the kid had no problem following directions. Only took a few slides up and down for Chuck to get the rhythm. When Casey drew his hand up that long cock, the kid’s hips instinctively sunk down – and oh fuck it to hell, he couldn’t help but bring his dick up to meet that herky-jerky cadence.

“Oh God.” Chuck’s feet slid, scrabbling for a foothold at a particular enthusiastic bang. “Son of a ….”

“You hanging on, pancake?”

There was nothing else for Casey to do, and allowing himself to do it, he thrust gently, drowning in the tight feel of Chuck’s body taking over his cock. The strokes stayed slow, becoming leisurely and deep, an unhurried fucking that allowed Chuck to set the pace. Casey leaned back on the footboard and focused on the slide of his cock, sinking into Chuck’s ass, and nothing else.

“Good boy ….” And God, he wanted that ass. “Need more?” The question came with a deep-seated poke.

“Oh, you dirty, shit for that …,” Chuck squirmed. Then, “Yeah, do that.”

Casey choked back a laugh, and obliged.

At that moment, one of the kid’s feet lurched over the blanket and he came down hard, letting Casey hit home with a penetration that had Chuck groaning. “Jesus … John –”

“You’ve got it …,” Casey answered, his breath caressing the back of his neck.

Jerking back and almost falling over, Chuck somehow regained his balance, using those gangly perfect legs to bring his ass up, then down ….

A moan rose deep in Casey’s chest. On the next stroke, he rammed home deep, feeling the slow scorch travel down his spine. The room no longer smelled like hay and fresh lumber, it smelled of heat and sweat and the pungent tang of sex.

“So fucking good, kid. You like to ride that?” Holding tight, Casey wrapped his hands around the kid’s hips, and now he did use that grip to steer him down, grind up into him with a bit more force. He was getting into the motion now, using those long thighs, narrow calves, all roped with lean muscle …. “Rock that sweet little ass, kid … yeah, fuck my cock….”

“G – shit you ….” There was one blissful point where Chuck left him buried to the hilt and turned his head to kiss his chin. “Ca-sey.”

“C’mon. Wanna come down …?”

“My … my legs….”

This wasn’t quite the answer Casey expected.

“Keep going, cupcake. Promise you’re gonna like it.” The convincing came while he still worked that fine cock, hot and hard in his palm. “Need you to hang on.”

Chuck’s hand slipped from the top of the footboard. “Don’t … please don’t get me wrong. I think parts of me want … more of you. But my legs are … I can’t st-stay like this.”

Jesus. “There goes your career as circus gymnast,” Casey grumbled.

“Wha -?”

“Never mind.” He should’ve noticed the kid’s thighs trembling with the strain of lowering and raising his ass over him. Guess he had to work up to that. “Come here.”

“What’re d-doing?” That gave way to more wobbling while he attempted to get purchase with one foot. “Sh – umph.”

Casey had started to scoot from under him, but he gave that hard cock one more drag while his hips still moved, giving Chuck a firm thrust. “Want you to get back on your knees for me. Can you do that, kid?”

The breathless nod made Casey dizzy. Chuck started to grope his way up, but to hell with that. The arm around the kid’s middle constricted and held him down, for no other reason than Casey wasn’t going to let go of him. He needed to keep them together, engulfed in a place so tight, so warm, and the epitome of total acceptance.

He never had that. Not giving it up yet.

“Don’t,” he told Chuck, shifting away from the footboard. “Relax – Christ, kid. I’m going to move us.” Every muscle along Chuck’s back went rigid, like he could vibrate out of his skin with the right touch. That meant it took some coordination and delicate handling to lift him on his knees, get his own legs out from under the kid, and line up behind him.

“Okay … okay ….” Chuck drew in a breath. He was a little sweaty and unfocused, up on his knees, but Casey could work with that.

“Yeah, stay there, goddess.” Casey said it while he tried to keep their bodies together, but the kid wasn’t listening anymore.

“I – oh ….” This stupid-pure kid. The slow steady screw drove him to a point of intoxication, like a drunk who’d finally found the brown bottle. And in the next three days, Casey had every intention of filling that need, anyway he asked.

“You like that, kid?” With Chuck into position on his hands and knees, and Casey behind him, the larger man canted his hips forward, ready to pick up where they had let off. “Waiting for me to fuck you? That what you want?”

“Damn ….” Chuck tried to raise that floppy head, his thick curls making Casey want to thread one hand through them. “Too much,” he said, and Casey loved the roughness he heard. “Case, please … want you … ffuck.”

Not quite coherence, but Casey figured that was the only kind of begging he needed. With his fingers splayed, he gripped Chuck’s hips, their haunches brushing front to back, and thrust hard. Pickin’ up a little faster. Slick and slow had gone, giving way to only hot and deep.

Hell, he had asked to get fucked, he was ready, and Casey was only being considerate. If it got rid of the trail of clawing need up and down his own belly, all the better. He had gone beyond wanting to come, thanks to the kid’s coy reluctance that was hard to shake, and now he had to come or his chest would burst.

Still being nice to him, though, Casey stroked the kid in time with his steady thrusts, fondling his balls, looping a thumb around the pink crown. “Like that? My cock in your ass?” He knew a few final thrusts, pushing the need out of him – like that – would be the end of him. “Should I let you come?”

“Shit… you’re so …ah….” The kid’s hands balled up the blanket like his last scrap of sanity. “… can’t make me … til I want …oh.”

“Hell. Really.” Casey chuckled, running this thumb down his crack. God, he loved a bit of stubborn willfulness, especially from this kid. Did he even know what the fuck he said? “You’re not in control here, sunshine. I’m taking care of you this time. Remember?”

“Oh … oh bastard for that you can do it again ….” Crazily, Chuck then managed to lift his head, looking back at him with glazed, soft eyes. “Y-yes, d-do that….”

“Yeah … like that, do you ….” Getting a grip on the footboard, Casey used it for leverage, thrusting into this handsome young man’s body. Over and over, not holding back any longer. With his cock buried in Chuck’s ass, he kept his hand moving, stroking hard and enjoying the way Chuck, instinct crackling, pushed his cock into his hand.

And because he was the most unlucky bastard going, or because he and God never saw eye to eye on any fucking thing, right then he thought of Liam. That cold son of a bitch. Warning him of the dire consequences of not staying in control.

Control. Fuck control. His blood was roaring, there was a crazy young man who thought he could fly someday under him. Wanting to touch and explore a man that no one had ever wanted to get close enough to until now.

The recollection of rules to take and leave were getting fuzzy. His breath was being sucked out of him, and getting closer was the only thing that mattered.

Chuck hissed between his teeth as Casey slammed into him, the taut look of utter concentration on his face. The way he pushed back on his knees more insistently, letting Casey take him all way, fucking him hard enough to make the bed bang the wall … it would undo him.

“Yeah, give me that fine ass,” Casey breathed, and letting go of the footboard, his hand roamed up Chuck’s back, clinging to his nape, fingers burrowing. He used the hold to help Chuck keep the rhythm, driving back on him. Or maybe for the reason that tempo couldn’t stop, and he had felt Chuck’s legs beginning to tremble.

“Oh ….” The kid choked, and Casey took a moment to really watch the profile of his face, the tense jaw, the slight bow to his head as his balls drew up, so close to being trapped in an orgasm.

“Come for me, kid … you want to.” In the back of his mind, Casey noted his voice sounded steady, and he was proud of that. Like he had hung on to his control, no matter what a lie it was. He ignored the fact that his insides coiled, unguarded, just an animal reaction to him. Or the voice saying, All mine.

“Oh … like that … God.” Chuck pressed back into him, full contact from behind, urging him to finish. On the brink, he was ready to convulse around him, shatter into a thousand broken shards.

“Yeah, good,” Casey urged, his lips buried in Chuck’s hair. “Just let go ….” He hoped it didn’t sound like an order, but it was.

Predictably, Chuck listened that time.

Giving in to him, the kid squeezed his eyes shut, rocked into the larger man with a force that surprised even Casey, and cried out. Liquid heat shot past his wrist, filled his palm, and Casey’s hand lost all its finesse, just jerking and taking, but he gave even hard thrusts though it.

It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, but in that razor-sharp moment, the tingling at the base of his spine, spreading outward like betrayal, sent him tumbling into the same realm. White heat and a place with no air. His head fell back, his body arched with tension while he continued thrusting more tenderly, lightheaded and shuddering.

The release of control slipped from his fingers, but not Chuck. Casey’s hands involuntarily clenched into his hips, steering him in, bringing him in closer. Not letting go. Won’t let go.

 

God, he was a fucking idiot for this.

Both men stayed locked together, sweat slicking their bodies, vaguely hearing the heavy sounds of their breathing echoing through the loft. When Casey looked down, past the sight of Chuck’s ribcage raising and lowering, to the back of his head, hair curled and wet, he felt the ache of need in his chest. Still. It hadn’t leaked out of him after sex that had no chance of going anywhere. No chance.

He’d need to repeat that a few more times. Because this kid, innocent and blushing, was the most terrifying man he had ever laid eyes on. No one could do that to him.

“Oh my God,” he heard the kid say, snapping him back to the present.

Casey grunted a reply, since there wasn’t much more to add.

“That … that wasn’t at all how I remember it,” Chuck mumbled. He drew in a long breath, not moving, since Casey guessed he had no idea how to get out of this position. “I can’t feel my legs, but I think the rest of me doesn’t really mind.”

Casey laughed, velvet and low. Leave it to the kid to pull him out of the thoughts that could only lead to something shadowy, deadly. His hand slid down Chuck’s glistening back, a possessive kneading touch leading to the slope of his ass. “You should take a deep breath for me, eh? Then let it out, pancake.”

“Why?”

God, circumstances back to normal with him. Just like that, he’s questioning everything.

“Do it.” Casey’s hand gave Chuck’s ass a proprietary squeeze to go along with the demand, his palm then moving to massage the base of his spine.

This time, Chuck did as he was told, and when he let out the breath, Casey pulled out of him as slow and easy as he could. It didn’t stop the kid from whiffing in a lungful of air and fisting his hands into the pillow. “Oh.”

“How is it?”

“Not so good.”

“You’ll be fine in the morning,” Casey said mildly, grateful Chuck couldn’t see his face when his lip tugged up into a smug smile. Underlining the light reproof, he lowered his chest to press against Chuck’s back and brought a hand around him to rub his lower belly. Since his lips were at his nape, he kissed him there, then rubbed a tentacle of a curl between two fingers. “Just takes a good night sleep. Don’t worry, kid. You’ll be askin’ for it a few more times tomorrow.”

“You sound like you have our whole day arranged,” Chuck replied, turning his head to study him with wide solemn eyes. “There were actually a few things I had planned, too, you know.”

“Bet my plans are more fun.” His quiet snort made Chuck flinch. He hoped it was in a good way. Unwinding his limbs, he slid down next to him, his arm automatically – what the hell – slipping under the kid’s head, and pulling him into the dip of his shoulder.

“Now that … I can’t argue.” A crooked smile turned shy but blazing glory, and Casey knew it was the move that molded their bodies together that put it there. When his eyes strayed to Chuck’s mouth, he felt his insides heat, turning foggy.

It wasn’t just the smile unraveling him. The eyes peering up at him through long dark lashes had slayed a killer. There was too much knowledge, calm in his gaze, like he could see through him and beyond him and there was nothing hiding underneath. Where it needed to be.

Chuck looked to the place his fingertip drew a circle over the bare flesh of his pec. “You’re perfect.”

This long lean kid, pressed up to him and perfect, couldn’t be more wrong.

Ruffling his hair away from his temple, letting his thumb linger, he tucked a wayward loose brown curl behind his ear. “Not even close,” Casey replied, lips brushing against his hair. “Now go to sleep.”

He should say something else to this strong yet gentle dreamer of a city boy so far far from home, but there are no words.

“I won’t be able to walk tomorrow,” Chuck huffed, a palm slowly wandering down the middle of his chest.

“Sitting’s gonna be a bitch too,” Casey added helpfully, tempering his joke with a kiss on his temple.

“Jerk.” His voice stayed light as he snuggled back down into the firm pillow of his shoulder, and he heaved a breath. “Can we worry about all of this tomorrow, then? For now … I just want to be like this.”

If he wasn’t on the brink of sleep, Casey would wonder why he had wasted breath on those two words. For now.

“Not gonna make you walk, anyway.” Casey squeezed his hip and closed his eyes. “I’ll carry you if I have to.”

His intuitive dreamer. Truthfully, Casey wanted to carry him.

But for tonight, anyway, he shouldn’t consider how far he wanted to go, the distance it would require to take them both away from here. From the dangerous place in which they had fallen.

-x-End Wings of Grace Chapter Seventeen-x-


	18. Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

-x-

Eh. Chickens. 

Fucking perfect.

Half asleep, Casey smoothed a hand over muscles that had knotted in his shoulder. The squawking of those noisy damn birds in the barnyard had him wondering where he had left his holster. But … the kid would probably get all fussy and woozy if he sent a few of them to rooster heaven ….

Kid.

He took a deep breath and let it out. “Hm?”

Even with his eyes closed, Casey sensed the sun was now peeking through the windows of the loft. Still, what was the rush? Instead of sliding out of bed, he pushed a blanket down his bare chest and gave himself a little pull. 

“You awake?” Casey asked, rust in his voice.

While he waited, he fought a grin at the memory of the prior evening’s activities that took place in this very bed. It also sent a nice boost to his morning wood. And seeing that regular sex, and damn good sex, would be at his disposal for the next few days, Casey shifted his arm out to the side – approximating the location of where he had left the kid in a snoozing pile of lanky bones the night before. Reached ….

Huh.

“Pancake,” he said sleepily, patting the mattress. “C’mere. And if you’re still sleeping, you should know, I do plan on rousting you.” As Casey slid a palm out to the side in search of warm skin, he threw a forearm over his eyes to block the light. “Sleepy head, eh? Well, don’t worry, kid. I have something for that.”

Casey waited for the groan at Chuck’s expense, or a floppy head of hair to land on his chest. When that didn’t happen, he forced himself to crack an eye open and turn his head. 

“Kid?” 

No answer. 

Suddenly more awake, Casey lifted his head and looked to the side of the bed. All he saw was a pile of rumpled blankets, a pillow with a head-dent in it … and that damn striped cat. Seemed to be judging him in that knowing way a cat had, and he didn’t care for the almost accusatory scrutiny. 

“Yeah, I ruined him for ya,” Casey said, giving the feline a little shove. “Now, scoot. Get out of here.” He got up on his elbows and shifted his gaze around the loft. The heap of clothes, hastily tossed over the chair the night before, had been disturbed. Noticeably, one of the shirts and a pair of jeans were missing. 

Not to mention the spindly, long-legged kid they belonged to.

Casey huffed and sat up. “Farm boy, if you thought I wanted breakfast in bed, you missed the -” 

That’s when he heard it. Outside, the sound of something, a ruckus, made him sit up higher. 

“… the hell is that?” 

The sharp wuff of a horse blowing through its nose and the clack of hooves had Casey tossing the blankets to the side. 

“Vic?” 

Without question, it was her. The worrisome aspect was that she usually made a squeal like that right before she put a back hoof through a man’s chest. And there was only one other man here, currently not accounted for.

“God, kid. You never learn,” Casey muttered. Pants. Where the hell were his pants? Okay, in the pile. As he began digging, another squeal from outside buried the idea of getting one pant leg up before Vic killed that fool kid. 

What trouble had the genius gotten into now?

Casey quickly strode to the loft door, unlatched it, and pushed it open. He hadn’t been burdened with any needless modesty – the kid had enough for both of them - so as the door opened on its hinges, he stood tall and bare naked to the world, not even cognizant of what he had to look like. 

“Oh, shit,” Casey said softly. Looking down into the barnyard, his eyes landed on the cause of the commotion. His first instinct was to yell a warning down at the kid to back away from the horse.   
Anywhere within range of Vic’s kick was no place for a greenhorn like this gangly school boy. 

But it took only a fleeting look to realize Chuck … wasn’t exactly in any kind of danger.

“What the ….” Casey’s mouth fell opened. No other words were coming. To be sure it wasn’t a dream, he knuckled any lingering sleep out of his eyes. 

Nothing changed.

Eventually he folded his arms over his chest and leaned a shoulder against the side of the loft opening. For now, he’d watch Chuck and the thousand pounds of pure muscle and adrenaline he was leading at the end of the guide rope. 

Leading? Shit.

How did he even get her out of the stall without injury to major organs? Vic was a one-man horse, and didn’t take kindly to strangers near her, let alone leading her.

Well, correction. Until now, she didn’t cotton to strangers, but this one seemed to have her under a spell. 

Betray me that easily, Vic?

As he watched them, Casey could see the kid wasn’t in any danger. Still, his attention coursed over them, horse and young man moving together, crazily reminding him of a choreographed show he had once seen in St. Louis. 

Whatever had awoken Chuck – and Casey put his money on a barn of hungry animals – he had apparently dressed quickly, not bothering with more than two buttons of his shirt. The blue chambray fluttered open as the kid moved in a circle, holding tight to the rope, the force of the horse’s gait creating a breeze that tugged at his curls, loose over his collar. 

He liked the way the kid balanced his weight on his heels as he moved in the circle, the way his muscles on his rawboned physique, tight and lean, rolled beneath his skin. Each movement revealed a pale strip of flesh where his jeans he pulled on were a little loose …. 

Stupid kid was beautiful, with no clue of his handsomeness. It was then that Casey’s throat tightened. He swallowed, telling himself he was a damn fool for not leaving this place yesterday. 

God, why did you give this to me now?

It made him aware that he would remember every detail about him. Every clumsy gesture, and yet each inexplicably graceful move. Maybe … this was what Heaven should look like, and the closest he would get. Maybe God was laying out a beautiful torment beneath him, one that he would have to walk away from ….

Because though Vic was the strongest yet most graceful animal he had ever laid eyes upon, she had nothing on the young man at the end of that rope. 

“Easy, Vic ….” Casey murmured. “Don’t hurt him.” Although his trained eyes took in the pace and body language of the animal, his gaze was more on the pair of jeans over the kid’s thighs and rounded ass, down to the boots he wore that added length to his already long legs. 

He was also reminded that the kid had decent smile. Just the sight of that beaming grin on his face sent a spike of heat straight to Casey’s chest, like everything was fine, and knowing he could never keep it there for good.

It had been awhile since he felt this way. Or anything, really. One thing that Chuck made him remember was what he missed. Companionship that gave him a strange wave of pleasure. It did, he had to admit. But the rest of the kid burned him from the inside and down to the soles of his feet. How could he ever be near Chuck and not want him?

Casey rubbed the back of his neck and took a clean breath of fresh air. If he could stop thinking with his dick for a minute, he might just appreciate Chuck’s pleasure at discovering Vic could prance like a circus horse, and was currently single-footing each hoof high in a circle around him. With her head lifted, her mane rippling in the breeze, Vic’s ambling gait was a perfect four-beat, front to hind. 

Show-off, Casey thought with a smile. 

“Vic, you’re making a damn fool of yourself,” Casey called down, letting the kid know he was being watched appreciatively. He scrubbed a hand over his chest, wondering if the kid would look up. Chuck didn’t, so he added a bit lower, “Look at you, girl, all weak-kneed and giddy for a pair of brown eyes. What am I going to do with you?” It made him smile, until Casey realized there was some uncertainty around the target of that last question. 

What to do with him?

Ridiculous to even think it. He was not goo-goo eyed over his kid. Couldn’t stay, couldn’t drag him along. Walking away was still the strategy. 

Yeah, really. 

“It’s about time, sleepyhead,” Chuck remarked, not taking his eyes off the horse as he steered her around. “Have I told you that you’re kind of cute when you snore? Don’t worry, it’s not loud. Though for the record, you take the deepest breaths I’ve ever heard.” 

Casey pushed off from the doorframe. “And since I was sleeping, you decided to take my horse out for a ride instead, cupcake?”

“Did it occur to you that maybe she likes me. Maybe I’ve gotten under her skin?”

“Beats the hell out of a case of ringworm, eh, Vic?”

“Hah.” The kid waggled his brows for emphasis. “I think it just grates on you that she fell for my irresistible charm.” He finally turned his eyes towards the man above him, leaning against the loft’s doorframe. “The fact that she let me – whoa. Holy ….” 

“What?” Casey said. 

“Oh, crap.” Chuck jerked back, eyes wide as horseshoes, and dropped the guide rope. “You’re standing there … like that?!”

“Problem, kid?”

“Are you serious?” he gasped. “I mean … yes! What I meant is your –”

“Morning wood is saying ‘morning, sunshine’?”

“What if the neighbors see you?!” He actually looked past his shoulder as if checking for any interlopers. Then he pointed. “Pants! Now!”

“Your neighbors?” Casey braced a hand on the door and chuckled at the thought. “I like your faith in me, brown eyes, but it is a few miles to the nearest farm, isn’t it?”

Chuck finally peeled his eyes away and picked up the end of the rope. A dull flush started creeping up his neck. “God, you are one arrogant big jerk. I can’t believe I have to say this, but can you put that thing away, please?”

Casey snorted. “Came out here to tell you something, kid. I think during the night, one of those wings fell off your flying machine.”

“A wing? But the dovetail joint was perfect.” Chuck wrinkled his nose in thought. “How could that -”

“And I thought since you’re so keen on fixin’ things,” and now Casey couldn’t help the smart-ass grin, “you might want to come up here and take a look at it.”

Chuck tugged gently on the rope and took two steps towards the barn door before he stopped dead in his tracks. “Wait.” He spun around and looked up, blinking at him. “You aren’t talking about me coming up there and -” 

“Tinkering in the workshop?” Casey stretched, lifting an arm to scratch the back of his head. “Yeah, now you’re using that noggin, brown eyes. Why don’t you get up here?”

“Really? Geez,” the kid muttered, wiping a forearm over his damp curls. “What I said earlier about being a big jerk? I’ve changed my mind. I think colossal asshole covers the complete spectrum of how low you’ll go.” 

Casey grunted, undaunted. “Not to mention that thing you call a tail section looks crooked to me.”

“It’s supposed to be. I haven’t finished setting it yet,” Chuck explained, leading Vic to a small water trough where his old nag, Jackson, was already drinking. “Now can you come down here, please? The chores don’t take care of themselves – as much as I wish they would.” 

Casey, always practical, thought his idea deserved one more last ditch effort. “How about taking care of some other chores first?” he suggested, keeping a straight face. “Or we could flip for it.”

“Let me guess. The two-headed silver dollar you keep in your pack?”

Casey hoped the kid wouldn’t look up to notice the scowl. “Well, seeing as you’ve been snooping in my pack, I guess I’ll get my pants.” 

“Uh,” Chuck started, pointing a smile. “Based upon where Buddy slept last night, they may have some cat hair on them. Just warning you.”

Casey grunted. “This morning just gets better and better.”

-x-

“Did you know Vic could do that?” Chuck gave him a questioning look as he tipped a bucket of oats and beetroot into another trough. Faced with two hungry horses, he stood back to let them jockey for position. “Prancing like a show horse?”

“I taught her that,” Casey said plainly, no bravado. 

The kid shook his head, taking a moment to process it. “You are a complex man, you know that? You have talents – and I should not finish that,” he babbled, glancing sideways before looking away in a hurry. “Where did you get her?”

“Won her in a sewing contest,” Casey said, still a bit peeved about his idea getting shot down. “Why’re you up so early?”

“Liar. And it’s nine-thirty. Half the workday is over, buddy.”

“Okay, it was a drilling contest. My partner and I went 27 feet in fifteen minutes,” he answered truthfully. “Couldn’t sleep?”

The kid hid a cringe by getting busy filling the next bucket. But Chuck couldn’t deny it, not with his cheeks suddenly lit up again. That was the answer, because a shy kid like this, his head had to be bustling with thoughts. 

“If you’re wondering if it’s because I hate myself this morning,” Chuck replied, quietly demonstrating his intuition, “or have … regrets about last night? Well, that’s not it. Here, girl.” He stopped to gently steer Jackson away from the trough, letting Vic take a turn at the oats. “I … wanted it to happen. It sounds … stupid, but no one ever really wanted to touch me before. There. I said it.” 

He didn’t need to be reminded again, for God sakes, but at that moment, as Casey’s gaze traveled over his open expression, down his lean body, he knew that eventually letting go would be the most difficult thing he had ever done. 

There were a couple more days and nights before he had to think about that. So there in the barnyard, with only a few feet between the men, Casey finished tucking his shirt in and smoothed his hair down. He was holding back, sensing he should do something when he got close enough to the kid, but not certain what that thing was. 

A good morning peck on the cheek? A satisfying slap on the ass? ‘Good job?’

Oh, hell no.

But by the time he got within arm’s length, it was aching lust, a blunt kick to the gut, that dictated the reaction, feeding him the sudden hard need to reach out and touch. Without thinking, his hand slid around the back of the kid’s neck so he couldn’t move. 

“Uh, good morning again?” Chuck flashed a baffled expression, feeling the strong hold on his nape - and that was all Casey needed. 

With a quick jerk, he pulled him in and kissed the kid hard, a yelp of surprise escaping before Casey quelled it with his lips. Coaxing him, his tongue curled along his bottom lip, then bit down. Yeah, that’s it. Exactly what he remembered. And wanted. A little more pressure, and one minute the boy’s lips were pressed together, the next they parted, yielding to the force behind the kiss. Even as he did, his body lifted up, back arching to bump his chest. The yelp from a minute ago became a soft groan. 

Casey took that as a little begging to be filled. He forced his tongue in, moving his mouth down on the kid’s for a kiss that was demanding, teasing him until he felt a faint quiver. He half considering just picking him up and taking him to the loft, ending it like that - but something told Casey the kid wouldn’t appreciate the somewhat direct approach. 

Yet, anyway.

When Chuck managed to tear his mouth away, the kid was breathless. Their faces were still close, Casey’s vision dominated by wide brown eyes, and he was pleased to see they were dazed, a whorl of confusing emotions bubbling to the top.

“Instead of leading her around like a damn show horse,” Casey said, a hand sliding down to the kid’s wrist, “you should apologize to her.”

“What?” Chuck raised his eyebrows. Casey had to wonder if the kid even knew his hand was now resting on Casey’s shirt, just above the waist. Normally he flinched at casual touches, but from the kid, he … liked that Chuck seemed to be comfortable touching him. “Apologize? Why would I do that?”

“All that noise you were making up in the loft last night? Mewling and yowling? She startles at those, you know.” Casey nodded at Jackson. “Though, I can see your valiant steed brushed it off.”

“I – I don’t think he has hearing anymore – but – but that doesn’t mean I’m admitting to any of those sounds!”

Casey swiped his thumb over Chuck’s inner wrist, enjoying the feel of smooth skin to his. Then letting go of it, he said, “For the record, I wasn’t complaining. I liked it.”

Chuck’s fingers had eased into more of a rhythmic stroke, brushing across his belly, but the lewd admission made him drop his hand. The shy but flushed look was back, and it only left Casey wanting more of it. 

“You know what I would like?” Chuck asked. His dark lashes flicked down towards their boots … or thereabouts. Casey suppressed a smile, even as that move built hunger in his gut to see the kid checking out his body. “There’s something you could do for me,” the kid went on, sounding hopeful.

“Yeah?” Casey let his fingers fall from the kid’s wrist, but that was only to hook onto his belt loop and give him a little tug, making him stumble. “We’re finally thinking alike, button, ‘cause I was just getting ready to suggest the same.”

Somehow, the little sneak managed to wriggle his hips from that hold. “Glad you could be so accommodating.” Grinning at him, the kid darted a look down again, then scooted around him. “Let me show you.”

Casey tried to quash his annoyance, accepting the fact that it wasn’t his ass being checked out at all, but rather something off to the side behind him. He turned around slowly, suspicious. “Show me what?” 

“This.” Chuck, still smiling, held it up by the handle, expecting Casey to take it. “Here.”

Casey straightened tersely and stepped back. “What the hell is that,” he grit out flatly.

“Um, wow, no offense – but I can’t believe I know what this is, and you don’t. Here, it’s pretty neat the way it works …. I bought it at Morgan’s Mercantile and Feed Emporium last fall? Oh-kay, I can see you’re not interested. But I can demonstrate how it to use it.” Turning halfway, he lifted it up by the handles and then stabbed the ground. “See? Then you separate the handles – hey!”

One of Casey’s hands shot out, grabbing onto it before the klutzy kid chopped off his own dick with the damn thing. Facing him, his eyes turned to cool blue ice. “I know what it is, goddess,” Casey said, his voice barely above a growl. “What I’m asking is why the hell are you trying to hand it to me?”

“You said you would do something for me.”

Casey leaned forward, getting right into his space. “Listen, kid, I shouldn’t have to spell it out for ya like this, but what I meant is that when I was doing something for you, we’d both be naked.”

“So … that’s a no, I take it.” Chuck looked across the barnyard at the open meadow, and sighed. The face full of disappointment mocked Casey, especially when his lashes fluttered downward to the ground. “Fine. I know you’re just a guest here, so after I finish planting the next dozen or so rows of vegetables, I can go ahead and get started on -”

“Give me that damn thing.” Despite at least five smart comments on the tip of his tongue on how well he had been played, Casey reached over and swiped the posthole digger from the kid’s hand. “Just shut up and point the way, because I know you have it all conveniently marked off where I need to start digging.”

Under the indisputably intimidating stare, Chuck didn’t even try to lie. Nope. Instead, he strolled in a step and laid a kiss on Casey’s lips, surprising him more than the fact he was now getting ready to dig a hole with a two-handled shovel for the little weasel. 

“Are you sure? I could dig the holes – um, over there to expand the barnyard – and you could plant?”

“Look at you, princess.” Casey rose to his full height and passed a meaningful glance over the kid, curly head to toe. “One of us is built for plantin’ posies and buttercups, and one of us is built for this job. Why don’t you go plant seeds, and give your body a rest … until tonight,” he added with mischievous humor. 

“Despite the insult to my manliness,” Chuck said, stopping to flex one of those stick arms of his, “I guess I should say thanks, and I’ll show you where– wait. What was that you said at the end?”

“Nothing.” Casey had already thrown the posthole digger over his shoulder, strolling off in the direction Chuck had pointed. “Coming, kid?” 

Mull that over, brown eyes. So what if he had planted another kind of seed, one that would rapidly sprout into a bushy tree of tangible ideas as the day stretched out to evening? Because honestly, Casey wanted the kid thinking of the activities after dinner, maybe stir a little need and let it smolder there. 

“Are … are you sure this is okay?” He could hear Chuck catching up in his footsteps. “Is your shoulder still sore? From your, well … you know.”

“If I turn around, and you’re making that signal with your thumb and finger …like a gun? I’m gonna bite it off.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“And my shoulder is fine, despite the hack doctor who sewed me up.”

“Hang on, that was my best work,” Chuck argued. “Oh, and I only fainted the one time.”

“Way to make your point kid.” Casey slanted his head so that Chuck wouldn’t miss the what the hell look. “A word of advice? You may want to steer clear of a law career. And yeah, that goes for the medical field, too.” He paused to shake his head. “Eh. A post hole. Can’t believe you talked me into breaking my back all day.”

“A hole …? Well, that’s the thing ….” As Chuck brushed a hand over his shirt, he flashed a wheedling smile. “It’s actually twelve holes – but, I’m not here to quibble over details. I was thinking eighteen inches should do it, considering the frost line in conjunction with the weight and diameter of the -” 

“You don’t quibble over details, you say?” Casey’s lips went taut. He hoped the kid got the warning. 

“Sorry.” Chuck shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “How about this? I’ll let you judge.”

Eyeing him, Casey pushed his hat back a bit. “Anything else you gonna let me do, brown eyes? Or does the digging and sweating about cover it?”

“I … won’t bring up the shingles over the firewood crib that need to be repaired.”

“And get that goddamn smile off your face.” 

When he didn’t, Casey arched an eyebrow at the challenge. 

“What?” Chuck asked, still with the dazzling grin. 

Not willing to let go of some control, Casey took an extra step. Before Chuck could reconsider his cocky behavior or even blink, the larger man tangled a hand through his hair and pulled him in for the third kiss of the morning – why was he even counting? It didn’t matter. He only cared about giving and getting a long taste of that mouth, soft and full of heat. 

“Mmmgh,” the kid managed, unwilling to give in to the rough pressure of Casey’s lips to his. “Worphk to do.”

Casey pressed. With a groan of hesitant acquiescence, the kid flailed a hand and then figured he should just grab on for the ride. 

“Bastard,” Casey heard him finally breathe, but at the same time the kid’s fingers clenched, fisted his collar. An invitation, Casey guessed, so he put a strong hand in the hollow of this back, sliding down over denim, and took a firm hold on one ass cheek. Already semi-erect after the first kiss, Casey hardened immediately at the quiet sound in Chuck’s throat. When he brought a hip forward, the kid’s cock pressed against the rub of denim, straining to get to that touch. 

Work to do? Heh.

Just as suddenly, Casey let go of him and picked up the posthole digger. Then he adjusted his hat and said, “Anything else you need done, cupcake, well, you just let me know.”

-x-

Casey sunk his shoulders into the grass, the soft blades touching his neck. They tickled, reminding him of the kid’s fingers. He reached up to rub a hand over his scruff, his blue eyes fixed on the pieces of sky he could see peeking out between the leaves. To the west, clouds tinged in grey rolled over the edge of the ridge, gathering like a band of soldiers. By nightfall, Casey figured, they’d be in for a hell of Mother Nature’s show of force. 

He tucked a hand under his head, heaved a breath, and closed his eyes. Compared to the back-breaking work that had his clothes clinging to his body with sweat and dirt, lying in the grass was bliss. 

“How much longer do I get to rest, sheriff?” Casey didn’t bother to lift his head or even look at the young man next to him, his legs sprawled and barely touching his calf.

“You’re almost done,” the kid answered, and he sounded serious. Like he was counting the holes. “And not doing half bad, really.”

“Half bad, hm?”

“The last few might require a little more trenching around perimeter,” Chuck observed as he sat up in the grass, polishing off a thick piece of bread. Casey heard him fill a cup before he took another bite. “Do you need anything else? Did you get enough to eat? Can I bring you more water?”

“Kind of you to consider my well-being, cupcake,” he responded, not looking up. “Was that your plan all along?”

“My plan?” 

“Use me for hard labor during the day, and to satisfy your demands at night?”

Casey felt something tap his thigh, guessing it was the kid’s foot. “Funny, Again. But you should be thankful -” 

“Oh, I am, brown eyes.” Cracking his eye open, Casey reached out to drift a hand over Chuck’s shin, up his knee. “Don’t get me wrong.” 

“No, no, no,” the kid countered around a bite, and swatted at his roaming hand. “That’s not what I meant. You should be thankful that I’m letting you earn your keep around here.” 

“This is earning my keep?”

“Sure. Even Jackson, who one would argue eats more than his weight in food every day, let’s me ri – oh.” 

“Heh.” Casey ignored the swats and moved his hand to the side, landing very close to Chuck’s crotch. “See, we were talking about the same thing.”

“Um, you seemed to have misplaced this.” Prying his hand away from a happy place, Chuck plunked on Casey’s chest. “Four more to go, and then we can stop for supper,” he said.

Casey growled and tipped his hat over his eyes.

“But if it’s any consolation,” Chuck went on, and Casey did not care for the tongue-in-cheek note in his voice, “if I compare you to Jackson, your abilities –” 

“Abilities?”

“Like hunting for food to put on the table, and digging holes? Well, those outweigh his contributions by far.”

“Yeah? Good to know.” Casey’s lip twisted into a smirk. “And if it’s any consolation, kid, digging your holes is outweighed every time by filling ‘em.”

Casey chuckled and sat up, taking one last swig of water from the tin cup. Rising also gave him a nice view of the kid’s backside as he scurried off, heading up the path to the barn and swearing under his breath. 

Something about being incorrigible, and that he really hated him right now.

-x-

Despite last night, Casey still kept an eye on him. Hell, he had even watched him a few hours ago, after planting the rows, when Chuck had disappeared into his barn for a few hours. Up in that loft with his crazy flying machine, no doubt. Casey wasn’t certain what bothered him the most, the fact he thought he could fly, or such a quirky lost kid was taking his focus. 

Dismissing that, Casey knocked some dirt clods off the shovel’s blades, assessing the day’s work. “Well. How’s that for a goddamn hole,” he said to himself. “Won’t be able to bitch about that, will you?”

Getting a whiff of his shirt, he wrinkled his nose. 

“Now, that’s something you might belly-ache about, eh, kiddo?” 

Because the goddess would certainly say something about the stench and dirt if Casey got too close, and he was definitely counting on getting as close as two bodies could get tonight.

Throwing the digger over his shoulder, Casey went back to the barn and found a hook by the door where the kid seemed to keep his tools. Going to the ladder, he climbed up to the loft, found his pack where he had left it the night before, and headed down to the creek. A good wash, at least, was in order.

When he reached the bank, Casey quickly peeled off the foul-smelling mess of clothes and pulled out a shirt and pair of jeans the kid had kindly washed for him the day before. Being alone in the water wasn’t going to be nearly as fun, he thought, remembering the cool slippery flesh pressed to his. 

“Damn,” he muttered, dipping in his foot. The swirling water was just as cold as yesterday, but it felt the same as shedding a layer of rough dead skin. Without waiting, he lowered himself under the surface and came up, then shook his head briskly. Water drops flew. The stab of the frigid water wore off after a minute, easing the tension right out of his tight muscles. 

That didn’t mean he could like it here. Didn’t mean anything.

Taking his time, he scrubbed his hands over his face, his upper arms, watching the day’s dirt and sweat run off him. Satisfied that he wouldn’t be offensive, Casey ran his fingers through his hair, ungluing a few short locks from his head, and glanced towards the cabin.

Postholes. How in the fuck did he talk him into that?

Casey let go of the thought and went under again. Without the kid there to distract him – though the notion of being in the water with him, lying on the bank together wasn’t unpleasant – the clean-up went much faster this time. 

Now that he felt human again, Casey climbed out of the water and lay in the grass. With long beads of water sluicing down his skin, he stayed motionless, letting the light breeze and sun warm him. Maybe he’d doze off for a while. He was comfortable here …. 

But he could leave now … if he wanted to. Hell, yes, he could. Get up off the grass, get Vic saddled up, and head north on the trail. 

It wasn’t until his stomach rumbled that he realized he would stay … maybe a couple more nights. 

Why not? There was food. Somewhat edible, at least. 

A kid with a killer smile. 

He wasn’t quite honest with himself when one of those things got him up off the grass. Got him dressed in the clean clothes from his pack, and walking up the trail to the cabin. 

-x-

“All right, genius, think about this. Even if you got that thing up in the air, how would you expect to steer it? It’s not like a horse that can feel the reins, now, can it?” Casey let that bit of common sense sink in while he spread a pat of butter on his bread. “You’d jump off a cliff, hit the side of a canyon, and splatter. Hell of a mess for someone to clean up, too,” he had to add.

“You meant to say when I get that thing – my flying machine - up in the air.”

Casey rolled his eyes and went back to spreading butter. “I reckon Vic’ll sprout wings from her withers before that happens,” he said.

“Ye of little faith,” Chuck replied. “You’ll see, though. I will fly it someday.” He stared down at his half-eaten dinner as he thought about it. “You didn’t even notice the tail section?”

“Notice what?’”

“Okay, I’ll explain it this way. You said you were on a boat before? That you fished in the Gulf?”

Casey chewed on the bite while the memory somehow made him smell dead snapper. For another thing, he wasn’t sure how he felt about this kid knowing so much about him. 

“What does that have to do with you dying on the side of a canyon?” 

“Thanks for your support. Really, it’s touching,” Chuck mumbled. “But I have to admit, you are pretty intuitive about one thing.”

“Only one?” Casey asked.

He didn’t take the bait. Instead, the kid put his elbows on the table and cradled his chin on his hands. “C’mon. You said I would have to be able to steer the flying machine … or the glider, the airship, whatever the case may be.”

“So?” 

“Don’t you see? It’s obvious to you, too. Not being able to steer is why men find themselves – well, slightly … dead.” 

“Cliffs?” Casey asked, turning his attention back to dinner

Chuck frowned. “Some of them.” 

“Then listen to my advice, kid. Forget about that contraption, and get yourself a good horse.” Casey considered his hurt face only for a moment. “Maybe learn how to hunt before you starve to death out here.”

“But that’s why my machine will work,” Chuck insisted, ignoring the piece of bread Casey tore in half to pass off to him. “They’re consumed with only getting in the air – not controlling the machine. They focus on lifting power, the angle of the surface … lift to drag ratios - oh, stabilization of the -”

“You getting to a point here, pancake?”

“Okay. Let’s use this … fork as an example. This is the flying machine.” Picking it up, Chuck held the fork flat in the air, slanting it just gradually side to side as he demonstrated a turn in a circle. “Now before you roll your eyes at me again, let me ask you this: when you were on the fishing boat, you used a rudder to steer it, didn’t you?”

“So that thing in the loft. You actually think -”

“Flying machine,” Chuck interjected.

“- that you’re gonna steer that … machine with the rudder near the tail end of it?”

“Wow.” Chuck peered at him over the fork, though he seemed to be in the midst of demonstrating how a rudder could help him avoid the side of the cook stove. “I stand corrected. Intuitive - and you did notice the rudder.”

Casey grunted and took a bite. “Yeah, I noticed,” he said.

The hint of cynicism got the kid to lower his utensil slash flying machine. “Hold on. I know what that means. That sound?”

“What sound?” 

“You … you grunted,” Chuck said. “You don’t sound convinced. I think that you think the steering mechanism isn’t going to work, and that noise is your way of telling me what you think without having to say it.”

In the back of his mind, Casey vaguely wondered what was happening to him, because he understood every word of that babble. “Nope. Not convinced.” 

“Why not?” 

Taking the last piece of pork, Casey began cutting into it. “I suppose your plan is for that thing to take flight. Up?”

The kid actually looked a bit ruffled. “Yes, I think that’s the general direction of flight, so what are you getting at?”

“And you think you’re a genius for the boat rudder idea?”

“I … wouldn’t quite put it that way, but okay. I think that the ability to steer has to be equally important as getting off the ground,” Chuck said, fidgeting with his fork. “What does this have to do with my rudder?”

“Ever see a boat fly?”

“Of course not. Why is this important?”

“The point is, school boy, a boat doesn’t fly up or down – it goes only starboard or port. Know what that means?”

“I’m not an idiot, you know. Left or right. So?”

“Your rudder doesn’t account for loft, kid. That is what you wanna do, isn’t it? Fly –as in up? Then be able to land on the ground again?” Casey pointed his fork towards the rafters. “Your design, as you like to call it, will only get someone stuck with the job of cleaning your lanky body parts off the side of a canyon.” 

“Thanks for your concern,” Chuck answered stiffly, halting mid-chew to make a sour face. “Since you’re the expert on this, why don’t you share with me how you would design the rudder?”

Casey shrugged. “I’m not the expert. But let me ask you this: have you ever watched a red-tailed hawk gliding over the ridge?”

“A … red-tailed hawk?” It took a moment for the words to register. Gradually, he leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand over the side of his face. “I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it.”

“Well, fly boy, I think you could learn something there.” Casey set down his glass, and then leaned back to mimic Chuck’s posture. “You should get out of the workshop sometime, and make a point to do that.”

-x-

“New York?” Chuck asked. He forked up a small piece of something Casey had refused to eat, chewing carefully before he swallowed. “Is that it?”

“No.”

“Philadelphia?” 

“Nope.” Casey didn’t even have to think about it.

“The Great Plains?” The kid sounded hopeful he was getting closer.

“Hell no.”

“How about somewhere in California? Maybe San Francisco?” 

California. Not a chance. The land and transportation monopoly of Southern Pacific was a son of a bitch to crack, and therefore his business associates stayed to the east of their control. 

Princess here didn’t need that detail, so Casey just shook his head. 

“The Ozarks?”

“Heh. Nothing there but moonshine and ladies who want to lift their skirts.” Casey pushed a bowl of boiled parsnips in Chuck’s direction, and nodded at it. Eat. “Not a bad neck of the woods, I reckon. But I prefer men who don’t mind dropping their pants.” He winked and gave Chuck’s kneecap a lewd squeeze, and then sat back to enjoy the blush. “Or at least the men that let me take them.”

“Let? Does the word let mean something different in the grizzly bear vernacular? Because you took -”

“You gonna eat that last piece of bread?”

“Okay. I know what you’re doing. But, fine, we’ll play it your way.” Chuck glanced down in surprise at the feel of Casey’s hand heading north. “Hang on - ah. Okay, how about this? Chicago?”

“Christ.” After a second, Casey pushed back from the table. “Are you gonna keep asking?” 

“Are you going to keep avoiding the answer?”

“I don’t … avoid. Some things just aren’t worth talking about, that’s all.” Casey picked up his cup, only to see that it was almost empty. “Why is this important to you?”

“I would think … that after two people have … done the things that we have, that they would at least know that.”

That was it. Nosey questions had a tendency to make his skin itch. So while Casey contemplated the kid’s earnest face, he took his time very deliberately putting a boot up on his knee, and plucking off a piece of dirt. 

That made Chuck frown a little, but the kid rested his cheek against his palm, holding his ground.

Another good-sized clod landed on the floor. 

“Well? Are you going to keep purposely annoying me, or answer?” the kid asked.

As he hunkered over his boots, Casey dared to slant his head up just once, and of course with his luck, he had to look straight into those dark curious eyes. 

He could shove him out of the way. Easily. He was not getting worn down. 

Trying to shake those thoughts, Casey refocused on cleaning his boots. 

That was about the time Chuck began to whistle. 

Tilting his head up, Casey dragged his attention from the leather soles to glare at him, hoping the mere threat would shut him up. 

“What?” the kid asked innocently. “Don’t you like Camp town Races? It’s kind of catchy if you -”

“Ah, hell,” Casey groaned. “I suppose you’re gonna keep doing that?”

“- five miles long, doo-dah, doo-dah -”

Casey closed his eyes. Normally, he’d be cleaning up the body parts by now. But another part of him knew there was only one way to end this ….

“What … the fuck was the question again?”

The kid’s victory smile nearly blinded his retinas. “If you could live anywhere in the country, where would it be?”

For an absolutely silent half minute, he thought about it while picking away at a stubborn crust of mud. He thought about this funny city boy, far from home, trying to make him talk … make him laugh …. 

Well, right then … couldn’t think of anywhere else to be but a remote farm with a gawky brown-eyed kid, a firm body next to him at night …. 

Almost could envision it, if he closed his eyes. 

Gotta stop thinking this.

“North Carolina.”

“North …? Hmm. Really.” Chuck reached down to pet the cat, his eyes never leaving Casey’s face. “Why is that?”

“Ocean.”

“The ocean?” he echoed, and Casey could tell he was not gonna just let it go. “All right, that makes sense – but, why North Carolina? You may have noticed this in all your travels, but there’s an entire Eastern and Western seaboard. And as luck would have it, there are other states besides North Carolina that are on the ocean.” 

“I thought you said it was just that one question.” Casey leaned forward, just to make his point. “I answered it.”

“But don’t you get it?” His grin faded some. “That’s the whole point! Sheesh. You have to answer why. I mean, why not New York?”

“Too crowded,” Casey said automatically. “And too many Polish immigrants.”

Chuck shot a narrow look and folded his arms over his chest, but let it slide. “Florida is on the ocean.”

“Too goddamn hot.”

“Boston?”

Casey stared. “Didn’t we just play this game, cupcake?”

“You didn’t answer,” Chuck pointed out.

“You are a stubborn little bastard, you know that?” 

“Rhetorical questions will get you nowhere. But I’ve been told yes.” Those warm yet curious eyes didn’t recoil. “So?”

Casey squinted at him. “Want any more over-cooked parsnips, or are the rest for me?” 

“Uh-huh. I get it. But then I can do this all night,” Chuck said, smiling sweetly. “Can you?”

He’d seen him do this game before. Delving into personal shit. Somehow he had figured there was a line they had crossed where all was fair in love and war. But if the kid thought he could lower his lashes and get whatever the fuck – 

“Hell, I don’t know!” Casey growled, pissed at himself for even thinking that word. “Not too hot, not too cold. Mountains when I need ‘em. Simple. Pass me the damn salt.”

Chuck’s brows drew down as he searched his face for the bald-faced lie. When he didn’t see it, a grin cocked the side of his mouth. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” 

The larger man shrugged as he gave Buddy the last scrap of pork. He should’ve held off, ended it there, but -

“What about you, eh?” he grumbled.

One thing Casey was sure of was that there would be no logic to the answer. He watched as Chuck took a deep breath and began to stack his plate and bowl, putting the answer together in his head first.

“That’s easy,” the kid said at length, and Casey swore those dark eyes of his went blacker, deeper. Somewhere else. “I’d find a place where I was home.”

Then why aren’t you there?

See? No logic. 

-x-

Since he figured the kid had made dinner – meager as it was - Casey took over the cleanup at the sink. Over the sound of the hand pump, he heard the kid open the door and step out onto the porch. A minute later he returned with an armload of firewood that he used to restock the iron log rack. Shaking off the rain, he got down on his haunches to lay a log on the fire, and then used the poker to move the hot ashes around, sending a burst of sparks up the chimney. Chuck stayed like that, tending to the flames for a minute before he threaded his fingers through his damp hair, and shook.

Casey studied him, his expression neutral. The little idiot had no clue how irresistible he looked, skin slick with rain, attempting to dry himself in front of the fire. And, face it. Too shy to ask him to do anything. 

It wasn’t his intention, but it startled the kid when Chuck stood and found himself wrapped in a pair of strong arms from behind, holding him tight. 

“Oh … I almost forgot how sneaky you are,” the kid said, his lean body still tense in his arms. He slanted his head around and laid a hand on a forearm that had wrapped around his middle. “Listen to that rain, hm? I can blame that for letting you get the drop on me.”

“Heh,” he answered skeptically. “But being stealthy is kind of my point.” Smiling, Casey brushed his lips against the dark curls at the back of his head. When his arm pressed Chuck to his chest, there was a sexy little tremor to the kid’s limbs that tightened all those lean muscles. Chuck was nervous, hell yes. That wasn’t going to change in one night, but Casey could ease him in if he had to. “Otherwise, the target gets away.”

“I …wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”

“Really, kid, ‘cause you’re not relaxing either.” Not that Casey had any plans to let him go. Not tonight. To the contrary, one of his hands slid down to rest on the kid’s waistband, inches above the buttons of his jeans. “You feel all … tight-like, kid. I have something for that ….” 

Knowing Chuck could feel the bulge pressed to the back of his jeans, Casey lowered his head and dropped a light kiss on the side of his neck. Breathed in, imprinting his scent in his mind. He liked it, all of it. Liked being close enough to smell the balm of grass, fresh earth, clean sweat. 

“What … what are you doing?” Chuck asked, like he didn’t know.

It made Casey smile again. “You need to tell me … how you want to spend the next few days.”

With his lips on his throat, he felt Chuck swallow. “I haven’t given it a thought … much.” 

“You thought about it plenty.” Solidly behind him, Casey decided to loosen him up by giving him a slow rub of his cock from behind. Focus, kid. “Before yesterday, too. You’re thinking … that you don’t wanna spend those days fightin’ with me – or yourself. You wanna spend them … figuring out how to use what you have....” 

Casey moved slightly, down and to the left, skimmed his lips over Chuck’s collar, darkly pleased when the kid’s fingers dug into his arms. He answered with a slow rub of a movement back into him. Oh … that's it. The kid's not small; Chuck may be rangy and slim, but it’s all firm muscle, and he’s sturdy enough so that he can push right back , let him feel his buttocks against him … like that. 

“Yeah … good,” Casey murmured, relocating one of his hands to ride down his thigh. He splayed out, squeezed in. It made him back up like that again ….

“I’m not jumpy – well, not about that ….”

“Then what is it?” While he spoke, Casey’s hand slid down to cup Chuck’s hip, helping him steer back and forth over his hardening dick. Just in case he had any notion of stopping … because it ached in a good, stupid way.

“Oh … that’s ….” The kid trailed off, eyes closed, like he was concentrating on the friction, taking his time to enjoy the hard feel of a man. ‘Cause after Casey left, when would he get it again? Either of them. When would he get more heat, arms around him, the slight quiver of that wiry body … long legs meant to wrap tight and hang on? 

It’d be a waste of damn precious time to even think along these lines, Casey decided.

After a minute, Chuck turned his head to the side and opened his mouth, but he halted right there and sniffed at Casey’s neck. “The creek? You went back there, didn’t you?”

“I coulda came and got you, brown eyes, if that’s what you wanted,” Casey replied coolly, pausing to give him a nice drag. “But I thought you had an aversion to public indecency.”

“That hasn’t changed, either. I was referring to the fact you … got cleaned up.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“Well, in a way, I am.” Though, Casey noticed, not disappointed enough to have to suck in a breath as the larger man moved a hard thigh between his, grinding up against him. “God …” Chuck said, relaxing into him. “That’s … mmm ... okay.”

“Come back and get more,” Casey encouraged, his voice a little low and husky. There were a few moments of shifting – maybe some grinding - while Casey considered ending the game by turning him around, throwing him over his shoulder, and hauling him up the stairs. It’d be easy, too. The kid didn’t weigh more than a dozen stone, soaking wet. Probably wouldn’t put up too much of a fight. 

But he was a bit curious what the kid was getting at. 

“Disappointed that I went for a dip?” Casey asked, and he couldn’t help but tighten his arm around his waist briefly just to lift him off the ground a few inches. Testing his theory. Yeah, the kid’s portable. 

Knowing it was playful, Chuck wasn’t fighting it, but it indulged the desire to take what Casey knew damn well belonged to him … for a few more short days. So, he held him over the floor, and with those bare feet dangling, he took the opportunity to tilt his head and bite less gently on the side of his throat. 

“Hey, put me down – John, I’m seri-”

“I shouldn’t have to remind you, kid, I spent hours working in the dirt today.”

“Um, thank you for that, by the way – did you hear what I just said?”

“- and considering what I plan on doing to you tonight,” Casey went on, ignoring him, “I figured you’d probably appreciate me taking the time to get the stink and dirt off.” 

“That was my point.” A foot caught his shin, and with the kid starting to squirm, Casey slackened his hold and set him down. “Geez, thank you,” Chuck muttered, turning around to face him. “But I had a plan … to take care of that. If you’d like …?”

“Well, since you wouldn’t let me do it my way –”

“Carrying me? No.”

“Then I guess I’ll pass.” 

“You don’t even know what it is!” The kid looked at him in a way that had Casey wanting to pick him up again. Wouldn’t set him down, either. 

But before Casey could move, Chuck had his hand entwined with his and began pulling him along. “What is it?” Casey asked.

“Follow me. Whoa.” 

Okay, he was intrigued - but he sure as hell wasn’t taking orders. As Casey dug his boot heel in, the resistance almost flipped Chuck backwards. 

Wide-eyed, the kid turned his attention back to his reluctant follower. “Alrighty then. No dragging, I get it. But this isn’t going to work unless I can get you to walk.” 

“To the firewood crib?” It didn’t take a genius, since that was the only doorway in the direction where Chuck still tried to tug him. 

“Yes, we’re going through there.” At the next pull, Chuck flicked him an annoyed look at the lack of cooperation. “But that’s not it. There’s something else, I promise. Now, can you walk?”

Casey rolled his eyes, but the kid wasn’t giving up. So resigning himself, he relaxed his upper body and let Chuck schlepp him through the tiny kitchen, out the back door, and into the firewood crib. There was a small ledge, about a foot wide, around the perimeter of the room where a man could walk and not fall into the pile of logs. 

Convenient, but it still made no sense. Neither did the doorway on the other side of the room. 

“Don’t tell me,” Casey grumbled. “You’re building an airship that will go to the moon back there.” 

“Don’t laugh. Maybe someday -”

“Get moving.” Gazing past the kid, Casey had to shake his head in disbelief at how sloppy his surveillance had been that first day at the farm. Why the hell didn’t he look past the wood pile to the room beyond it?

He flashed back to that day, standing on the threshold and pointing a gun at the kid’s head. Well, fuck. His lapse had nothing to do with a pair of golden-flecked brown eyes and a nervous, too wide smile. Only a fool would fall for that. And he wasn't a fool. 

It was as if the kid could read his mind, because Chuck chose that second to turn around, tighten the hold on his fingers, and sweep him with a grin. Those eyes lit with quiet pleasure at Casey’s compliance, that he was willing to go along with whatever was behind that creaky pine door.

“Close your eyes,” Chuck said, licking his bottom lip. 

“If I recall, I’m still the one giving the orders around here.” Casey leaned forward so their noses almost touched. “Open the door.”

“I hate to be the one to break this to you, big guy, but I think we crossed that line last night,” Chuck replied. “This is the equal footing phase of our … thing. Whatever it is between us.”

Casey’s jaw tightened. He was not going to let the kid dick him around. John Casey did not get dicked by any - 

Half way to folding his arms over his chest, Casey abruptly squeezed the hand still holding his- and became aware that he had closed his eyes. Closed ‘em. 

“Jesus. I can’t believe I’m going along with this,” he mumbled. “Lead the way, hot stuff.”

There was a reciprocal tightening of the kid’s hand, the long slender fingers encircling his with a strange security. One thing for certain was that he didn’t need his eyes open to know that there was now a wary grin pointed at him. It warmed his flesh like a bonfire, flaring up to the sky with a shot of gasoline. 

“Good … keep them closed … that’s right …. Here we are … keeping walking – no, no, no – that’s far enough.” 

Damn it if the hairs along his neck didn’t prickle, right as a hand slid over his shoulder, cupped. Casey straightened. “Enough of the patty-cake, kid. What do you have to show me? And make it quick. I’d like to get back to -”

“Not so fast,” Chuck broke in. Casey felt a poke on his waist. “You can look now.”

Slowly, he opened his eyes. Blinking in the semi-darkness, Casey waited as his pupils steadily adjusted to the lack of light. The first thing he noticed was that the room was small and windowless. 

“Um, ta da?”

“Eh?” Casey moved around Chuck to get a better look. His eyes settled on a black wood stove, a potbelly version with a notched iron door. The kid had a fire going, a crackling flame casting slivers of light through the holes in the grate, barely enough to illuminate the corners of the room. 

Chuck stood in the shadows next to the stove, the faint glow revealing that every muscle went rigid as he waited.

“Well. You can see … it’s not much. But I tried to make it … nice?”

“Are those –”

“Uh, yes. Indeed. Those are candles.” Chuck seemed flustered, hiding it by nodding at a few white tapers perched on a small side table. The long streams of wax told Casey they had been burning for a while. “I thought it was a little dark in here. Normally, I don’t mind … but ….”

Since the kid was still in the shadows - and looked like he was ready to pass out - Casey raised a hand to stop him from going any further. Stepping forward, he peered down at the object in the middle of the room, in that soft darkness like the first night he was there. 

“Mind telling me,” Casey asked at last, raising a brow at the kid, “where that came from?” 

“Well,” Chuck said, scratching the back of his head, “you seriously thought I didn’t own a bathtub? It was here when I bought the place.” Giving him a nervous glance, he walked over to the stove and dipped his finger in a tub of simmering water. “Oh. Hot … hot ….”

“Have to touch boiling water to know it’s going to burn you?” Casey asked, sauntering in a little closer. Tonight was not the time to think how many ways he could interpret that. “Just gonna hurt your fool self,” he added a little lower.

“Really.” The kid shook his hand in the air to get the sting out. “Your concern is touching.” 

“Looks big,” Casey said.

“Hm?” Chuck’s head snapped up. He had been studying the tip of his finger. “No. It’s fine.”

Casey tilted his head down at the tub, repressing a smile. “Meant that.”

“Ah – that. Well. I just got lucky that the previous owner was almost as tall as me. Or us, I guess. It’s … pretty comfortable.” 

“So your plan?” 

The kid stayed still for a moment or two, giving the thunder its chance to rumble and roll above them. He gave away his edginess by pushing a hand through his hair, a familiar gesture that made Casey smile. 

“I thought you might want to take a bath tonight,” he faltered, and for the longest time, Chuck seemed to be taking great care not to look Casey straight in the eyes. “A real one. Not the creek.” 

Casey made a noncommittal noise. He figured this was the reason the kid never got laid – much – until now. Never could say what he wanted. Like a damn virgin stubbing his toe on the floor. 

“Spit out the rest, brown eyes.”

Practically every inch of flesh on the kid’s neck turned red, but Casey had to give him credit for lifting his chin to finally look at him. When he did, Casey could see Chuck nearly vibrating with nerves, anticipating what he was getting ready to say. Or maybe what would come next. 

The kid swallowed. “I was hoping maybe you wouldn’t mind taking one … with me?”

-x-End Wings of Grace Chapter Eighteen-x-


	19. Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

-x-

Oh, God. What did I just do? When did I become this desperate?

Okay, don’t answer the last one. 

The sensation of needing to duck his head closed in fast. It was the same sensation of accidentally backing up bare-assed into a hissing stove. And it was unfortunate – also entirely the cat’s fault – that the kid had firsthand personal experience with that. 

The getting burned part, not the taking a bath with another man part. That was new.

How new? Just hearing his own voice asking him had stoked the flame on his cheeks. To say nothing of the one currently lapping at his lower belly. 

He’d never thought of himself as the initiator, the one that would take even an ounce of control – and hell, with this man, he never would. But he’d wondered and wanted, at least just the once, to be the first to extend his hand. He never had that. Maybe for the reason, he never really had the chance. 

Well, until now.

But with hardly a few feet between them, the kid was doing everything to avoid eye contact with a man whose presence demanded all the available air in the room. When Casey entered the tiny quarters, his shoulders nearly brushed both sides of the doorframe, and immediately the kid’s head was filled with the image of a short week ago. A week since he had barged in, rain sliding down the oilcloth brown coat, over the brim of his hat - not to mention the long rifle pointed straight between Chuck’s eyes. That night, the whole experience of it, had filled him with nothing but fear and confusion. 

Tonight, those two sentiments came rushing back in a completely different form. 

Had he lost his freaking mind?! 

Wasn’t this the last man on earth he should be offering to join him in his bathtub? 

Steady. 

Steady …. He could do this. 

Fists clenched, Chuck sent a cautious glance past his shoulder, over to the stove and the simmering bucket of water that would nearly fill the tub. When he dragged a hand through his hair, tangled there with the day’s sweat, he felt the focus of Casey’s awareness, scrutinizing his momentary indecision, and finding some amusement in his struggle. 

“It should be ready in a few minutes … if you are, you know, interested.” Chuck swallowed and turned his attention to the other man. His vision became dominated by a pair of amazing blue eyes. “But if you don’t want to, well, I don’t want to pressure you … into thinking that you have to – wait. What is it?”

“Nothing,” Casey replied, though it was obvious to the kid he was biting down on his lip. “You were saying?”

“I … I was only saying, I can promise you, the quiet spot here ….” Chuck stopped to nod. “Hot water … it can make you forget where you are for a while.” 

The kid cleared his throat awkwardly. He regretted those last words. The sound of something so honest made him automatically lower his head, but that only brought his line of sight down to a smoothly muscled upper body, a broad strong chest that he had rested his head on that very morning … safe within the circle of his arms. 

I can’t be with you more than a day or two. 

The man was a swim in dangerous waters …. 

Wasn’t he?

And he was only dipping his feet in, okay? That’s all. 

Chuck shook his head and forced his eyes downward, drifting over legs a mile long, down to a pair of worn boots. 

Boots that suddenly strolled in closer, he noticed before quickly looking up. 

“Is there a reason I’d want to do that?” Casey asked. “Is there something I should forget?”

“No, it’s not important, I guess. It’s only a bath. If … you want a real one. Not like the creek yesterday. I don’t think that qualifies as actual … bathing.”

“Worked for me,” Casey answered, shrugging a shoulder.

The kid’s eyes traveled up again, straight into an easy smile. “Oh. I get it now. This is your fun-with-Chuck face – whoa.” His eyes flared when he realized what he said. “I meant fun-at-my-expense face.”

Casey chuckled and ran a hand over the back of his neck. The rumbly noise told the kid he was right the first time. 

Hesitating, not sure what to say to that, Chuck shoved his hands in his pockets and waited. But that settled it. Being the object of his focus, standing in the heat of an unrepentant smile from Casey? Well, it seems his Guilt Trip could wait a few days before hitting the road, because there was nothing that was going to stop him from taking a bath with a man who could look at him like that.

“So you’re suggesting my legs are gonna fit in that tub?” Casey turned away to size it up. The smile stayed where it was, the kid noticed. 

“Okay, you have a point.” Chuck tilted his head though, because if Casey was thinking along those lines, he had missed the point completely. “Um, but it is rather … roomy, though. Don’t you think?”

“I might be convinced.” Casey said, letting his gaze slide over him. “It would be a damn shame to waste all the effort you put into it. Suppose you found some soap?”

Chuck nodded guiltily. He didn’t think Casey would take kindly to the news he had dug through his pack earlier in the day to find it. “All right, convince you? If that’s not enough, the bucket on the stove is almost ready, and that should fill it to the top. Oh, and over there next to the tub? I have a cloth and some towels.” He slanted a look towards a chair where he had laid out a few items, and a tentative smile crept across his face. “Are you still trying to decide?”

Casey leaned over and dipped a hand in the water, as if he needed to test it when he could see there was steam softly curling over the surface. Chuck wished he could enjoy the vision for a moment, the way the flickering light from the kerosene lamp splashed over his profile, revealing the sharp blade of his jaw and the line of his nose. He could get used to seeing it ….

“Not bad,” Casey pronounced, standing to face him. “Anything else?” 

When Casey looked up, Chuck caught … something. A gleam swirling behind those baby blue eyes… and it hit the kid like a brick. 

Damn. Casey was playing him like a cheap banjo in a vaudeville act.

He bit down on his lip to suppress a shining smile, even as he prepared to sway him. As if. “A skeptic? Okay, here you go: it’s starting to rain, and I don’t know about you, but that sound – the drops on the tin roof? I think it’s kind of nice, don’t you? 

“Sounds like the damn caterwauling of two alley cats,” Casey replied.

“How … how is that even – okay ….” The kid shook his head and strolled in toe to toe, hoping it looked half as bad ass as Casey’s version. “You can tell the water’s hot ….” 

“Eh. Lukewarm at best by now, what with all the chatter going on.”

Chuck gave him a look. Normally, he’d argue, but he had made it this far, and there was no stopping now. “And, for the record, I plan on being in the tub with you … helping you wash up? If that’s okay.”   
“Hot water, you say?” Casey asked, pretending to give it some thought. “Well, you might have me persuaded.”

“Hot – did you hear everything I said?”

“And soap?” By now, Casey had stopped trying to hide a smirk. 

“You know something?” Chuck paused to fold his arms over his chest. “Leaving me dangling out there is only fun for one of us.” 

“God, the look on your face ….”

For that, Chuck did the mature thing and stuck his tongue out at him. He felt only marginally better, but as he watched Casey, the kid had to give in to a broad grin. “Uh-huh. Don’t act like hot water has anything to do with the fact you’re taking your shirt off already.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Casey asked him, even as the second button came undone. “Why you went to all this trouble, kid?”

It was really hard not to focus on those large hands, working down the buttons. “Um, when I –” 

“- hauled me back here?”

“- I never said you had to take a bath – I just offered it up –” 

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, button.”

“- and as far as having you take your shirt off - okay …all riiight ….” His stunned-stupid brain gave up. “I’ve got nothing here.” Grinning, Chuck raised his hands, palms flat, signaling defeat. “Just …. You have my permission to keep … doing that.”

“Knew you could be a bossy little shit if you wanted to,” Casey grumbled, but he didn’t seem to mind. The last buttons came loose, and Chuck took a moment to appreciate the light brown hair on his chest, flat stomach, trailing down in a narrowed path to his jeans …. 

Huh. Those have to go. 

“Are you just going to stand there blinking like an idiot?” Casey went on, “or are you getting naked, too?” 

“Hmm?” Hastily, Chuck averted his eyes to the tub, which did exactly squat for hiding a crimson blush. So much for being suave. “I was only … trying to – hey, do you need me to take your holster?”

Casey paused in the middle of shrugging off his shirt. “Why?” He sounded wary.

“Were you planning on taking a bath with it?”

The stare told him that was not worthy of a reply.

“Are you … kidding me?” Chuck rolled his eyes and held out his hand, waggling his fingers. “After you asked me to trust you? That crap with the blindfold?” 

“I mighta let you touch other things, kid, but that’s sacred.”

“Wow. You are serious.” Chuck huffed. “Listen, I only plan on putting it on the back of the chair for you. Is that okay, Wild Bill, or do I need to be worried about direct contact during the bathing experience I have planned for us?”

Casey grunted, one that seemed to say the attempt at humor was unimpressive. Also, not welcome. However, without saying anything else, he lowered a hand to the buckle, then deliberately, Casey removed the holster and held it out.

“Just don’t touch it.”

Chuck’s brows scrunched up. “How – how can I not touch it and get it out of the way for you?”

“You’re the fucking genius.” Casey held the leather strap by one finger, letting it dangle in an I dare ya to take it gesture. “Figure it out.”

Chuck called his bluff. Sure it was risky, but if Casey wanted any of his other firearms handled tonight, he wouldn’t kill him on the spot for touching this one. 

“Put it in my hand,” Chuck said, surprising even himself with the sureness in his answer. “C’mon, you can do it. Trust goes both ways, doesn’t it?”

Casey didn’t bother to modulate the menace in his growl, even taking pleasure in the paling of Chuck’s expression. A long minute passed, but the larger man looked past him to the bathtub, and reluctantly lifted the holster within Chuck’s reach. “Take the damn thing.”

Chuck grinned. “I guess I was wrong. I always thought wild animals couldn’t be tamed.” He wrapped his hand around the dangling strap and gave it a little tug. “Maybe you can learn to live within the confines of the law if you only – hey!”

So maybe the concept of trust had completely eluded him. Because in the same breath, Casey used the grip Chuck had on the holster to haul him in like a hooked - and confused - fish.

“What are you –” Chuck stumbled, trying to back up, but an arm like an iron vice wrapped around his waist and held on, pressing his hips to Casey’s firm body. “Um, I wasn’t ready –”

“You still trust me, too, then?” Casey wondered, his lips close to Chuck’s ear. 

“Of … of course.” Chuck let out a breath. Good God. That did sound a little shaky. He could blame being towed around helplessly – wasn’t this his idea? – or perhaps Casey’s cock, now prodding into his left hip. “You know I do.” Mostly he did, but now was not the time to quibble.

Casey didn’t point out the way his eyes had shifted down, avoiding the intimacy of a half-believed admission. Rather, he cupped Chuck’s jaw and steered his face back up, bent in, and kissed him. Slow, wet, the kiss was meant to soothe him, teasing him with light strokes of his tongue until Chuck felt a faint quiver in his muscles. He hated giving away his secrets so easily, the shaky effect one heated kiss had on him. 

When Casey finally drew back, leaving Chuck breathing hard, he passed a thumb over his lips before he spoke. “I’m going to make sure you remember that.”

“Why are you so sure I’ll forget?” Chuck said, his fingers caressing Casey’s shoulders.

Casey smiled in a way that told Chuck he wasn’t going to answer. Circling his waist with one strong arm, a hand moved to the front of his jeans and palmed him through the pants, sure fingers cupping him like he had every right to do it. 

Chuck’s eyes widened, though he didn’t back up that time. “That’s not a fair way to end a serious – oh.”

There was another squeeze, and that drowned out any lingering protest. Chuck closed his eyes and instinctively pushed into his hand, trying not to speculate on when he became this wanton. He used to listen with his brain, for God sakes. 

“Yeah? If you want to take a bath, then I want you naked,” Casey said, his jaw brushing the side of his head. “All the way. Right now.”

“But what about you?” Chuck opened his eyes, perplexed that Casey had let go, but it was only to hang the holster on the back of the chair.

“Didn’t you just say trust goes both ways?” Casey asked, sauntering over to him again, stopping when he was so close. 

Chuck had to blink just to focus. “You were listening.”

Casey rolled his eyes. He did lift his arms out to the side, however, and the shirt that he had only started to remove a minute ago now fluttered wide. The view of his chest was just as good or better this way, even with the shirt on, Chuck decided. It was easy to see the line of his muscle, or the swell of his pecs when he raised his arms higher. As if saying, You got me, sheriff.

Oh, Chuck could be a very bad sheriff. 

“Does that look mean you want to help?” Casey kept his arms raised, his hands in the air, though a muscle twitched in his cheek. “Or maybe you’re going to try to bring me in?” 

“In … for?”

“Just take it, kid.”

“Uh, can … you bend your arms? It’s a little challenging if you – oh. Thanks.”

He did take it, feeling inexplicably nervous since he’d only done this for the first time last night. A good tug at the shoulders first, he pulled on the sleeves until the shirt fell down his upper arms, his back. 

When the kid had it balled up in his hands, Casey took it from him, studying Chuck’s face while he tossed it on the back of the chair. “Clothes,” he said, straightening. “You heard me. Off.”

Chuck folded his arms over his chest. “I – thought that this time, we could -”

“Hell.” Casey’s hand latched onto the front of his jeans, and abruptly pulled the first button free. “You think too much, kid.”

“Ho – hold on….” Chuck pulled back from him, even as Casey gave a brusque tug, forcing the kid to arch his hips as the larger man ran into a particularly stubborn button. “You know, this wasn’t at all how I planned –!” 

“Hm?” Casey froze in the act of sliding a few fingers under the waistband, moving them over the kid’s flat lower belly. “You have been thinking about it.” At Chuck’s grimace, he grinned. “Got this little bathtub scene all figured out in that head of yours? Is that it?”

“No,” Chuck insisted, and that at least was the truth. “Once … we get here, my imagination was a little fuzzy with certain deta -”

“Heh. Nothing wrong with your imagination kid.” 

“Okay, point. But that’s different. It has nothing to do with - ah! Easy there. Getting us in here … together? Well, I mean… I know things could happen once we -”

“So you want me to help you out with this part, brown eyes?” 

“I’m … I’m not sure?” Idiot! Well, Casey seemed to know, because Chuck heard the unfastening of his belt, the tongue coming loose and the belt being removed in a long drag. “I don’t know … I was hoping -” 

“’Cause I think I know what you’re getting at,” Casey said, his hand moving over the back of his pants, running over his ass. “You want to do it together, nice and slow, huh? Yeah. We can do it that way, if you like ….” 

It made it hard to think, what with a large hand rubbing on his buttocks, steering him in close. “You’re not talking about a bath.”

“Get undressed.” As he said it, Casey guided Chuck’s face to him, and surprised the kid by leaning in to take a tender, moist kiss. The little pull and jostle had brought him in the vicinity of Casey’s hip, and Chuck took in breath because – God, he liked the feel of that. When he groaned, Casey smiled and broke the kiss, pressed his lips to his ear. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” he said.

He had to admire a man for knowing what Chuck wanted more than he did. Admiration would come later – he was sure of it – but the kid was too busy sliding a tentative hand to the buttons of Casey’s jeans. “John,” the kid mumbled, tipping his head in to take quick kiss. “Yes, that’s … what I want.”

It only took an instant for Chuck to realize that the hazy act of undressing in his dreams, the falling of clothes from their bodies, was just that. An act. 

In reality, the way it happened was clumsy and ungraceful. A shirt stuck in jeans, too tight boots that had to be shucked off, bringing one foot off the floor to tug at a heel. Then the other coming off with an awkward pull that almost sent Chuck down on his ass. 

When Casey got the kid’s pants down to his knees, he lowered himself on his haunches and tapped his leg. “Up. Raise ‘em.” 

“Who’s bossy now?” Chuck observed, submitting to lift one foot, then the other. This allowed Casey to drag his jeans and undershorts all the way down, which he promptly tossed to the side.

Still on his haunches, Casey looked up at him, and gave a tiny smirk. “Didn’t know you liked baths this much, kid,” he said, dragging a warm palm up his thigh – very close to the source of his mirth.

“Decided the usual torture wasn’t quite enough this time?” Chuck sounded confident, despite the fact he was desperately trying to cover his embarrassing arousal. 

It wasn’t working so well. In a blink, Casey took his wrists, encircling them with his fingers, and pressed them against his outer thighs. “Took forever to get this far,” he said, “and now you want to cover it up?”

Chuck blew a breath, because now that Casey had latched onto his wrists, he knew it would be useless to try and twist free. “I thought we were doing this together?” On a whim, he put on his sheriff voice. “I want those pants, mister.”

Casey turned his head up at him, obviously surprised. “Yeah?” Not able to withhold the grin, he rose abruptly and held out his hands again. “Then take ‘em, kid.” 

Crap. A second ago, he had Casey on his knees in front of him, and why did he insist he stand up? God, he was not good at this.

“Cooperation. What a surprise,” Chuck griped to cover his blunder. Feeling Casey’s watchful presence, eyes coursing over him, Chuck dropped his hands to the flap of the larger man’s jeans, and gave them a little pull. Two inches was as far as they would go. Even his pants were obstinate.

“May need to get down on your knees,” Casey suggested. His fingers grasped Chuck’s shoulders to give him a gentle yet firm push. “Easier that way.”

“You’re full of helpful recommendations,” Chuck said. But obediently, he got down on his haunches and gave the pants a stronger yank to get them down his thighs. 

Then he startled and looked away when a rod of steel hit him on the nose. 

Holy …. Chuck wet his lips and cleared his throat before looking up past the achy inches into a smug face. “I’m not the only one who enjoys a good bath,” he joked lamely, standing in a hurry.

When he rose, Casey’s eyes narrowed, taking a hard look at that replay. He seemed disappointed for some reason. “You serious?”

“Um, is there something wrong?”

Casey shook his head. “God, you are something else, princess,” he muttered under his breath. “Fine. We’ll do it your way. Let’s get clean, eh?”

“Who … who should go in first?”

“I thought we were going together.” Casey scrubbed a hand over his cheek as he regarded him. “Isn’t that how you planned it?” 

The kid was still trying to figure out what had Casey slightly miffed with him. “Well, we are, but someone has to get in first, right?”

Casey considered it. “You want me on your lap?”

“Uh, no?” Chuck shot a discreet glance over Casey’s body. “Not necessarily, considering that I think you could snap me in half.”

“Good call, genius. I’ll get in first.” Casey put one foot in the water carefully, followed by the other, and gradually lowered himself into the heated water. “Oh … hell ...,” he murmured. 

“Too hot?” 

“Nuh-mmm.” Settling in, his broad shoulders sunk against the slope of the cast iron, and whatever had bothered him a moment ago evaporated like the steam rising up from the surface. He took his time to stretch out, letting his long arms drape over the side of the tub, those fingers half curled, suggesting surrender. As Chuck admired the view, Casey closed his eyes and tipped his head back. The weight of what he was carrying had been replaced by a look of pure relaxation, maybe something closer to bliss. 

“Is it …okay?” Chuck asked, already grinning. 

“Nah, it sucks, cupcake.” Raising his head a half inch, Casey opened one eye to just a slit, and smiled. “You did okay,” he said, and added in a low voice, “Now get your skinny ass in here.” 

“I should be resentful of that.”

“You’re going to be too busy to be resentful,” Casey replied. One of his hands, hanging there limp a second ago, came out and closed over his wrist. “Climb in.”

Chuck jolted. “Wait. I don’t need help – and if you pull, I’m going to fall head first – or slice my head open, and trust me, after all the trouble to fill this, you don’t want my blood getting all over the – watch it!”

“Christ,” Casey cut in. Methodically and without emotion, he gave a good yank. 

“Ca – hey. I said not to -” Another tug was Chuck’s only warning before water filled his ears, his nose. The kid struggled, throwing an elbow, but even from a reclined position in the bathtub, Casey subdued him like a rebellious puppy at bath time. Down he went.

Okay, panicking and kicking was not going to get him out of this hold. That didn’t mean he couldn’t try, but despite one good slap, Casey held him under the surface for a good five seconds while Chuck flailed, water sloshing over the sides.

“You’re going to spill it all if you keep slapping me,” Casey said when Chuck popped up, sputtering and coughing.

Chuck splashed the big asshole, who was laughing quietly. “I didn’t need your assistance, you know. I could’ve gotten in myself. Without the use of brute force?”

“My way’s more efficient,” Casey answered, settling back again. “Fun, too.”

“Just sidesplitting with hilarity,” Chuck deadpanned, wiping the water out of his eyes so that he could glare at him. “And I’m moving down here, out of harm’s way.” The kid sloshed and slipped around a little more before lining his back up on the opposite side, and sprawled his legs out on top of Casey’s. “Told you we could fit.” 

Casey shrugged, turning a considering eye on the kid. Since he had emerged from the surface with dark curls stuck to his head, Chuck pushed a hand through his hair to unglue them, then shook his head like a wet dog when that didn’t quite work. 

It startled the kid that Casey chose that second to reach over and ruffle his hair. Mussed it up a little. It was a surprisingly intimate gesture after Casey’s horseplay, as if he needed to tell him … something about himself. A real reaction to being wrapped together in a small space. A good place. The steady stroke gave Chuck a sense of closeness, protection. 

Then Casey dropped his hand and said nothing for the longest time.

“Is … everything okay?” Of course he’s not going not answer that, but Chuck had to ask.

“Do me first,” Casey told him, leaning back.

Chuck’s spine stiffened. “Wha - Oh.” It hit him that Casey might’ve meant something else when the larger man held up a washcloth. 

“I jumped in the creek before dinner.” Looking like a victorious Celtic warrior rewarding himself after battle, he slouched down and waved the cloth in front of Chuck’s face. “That means I’m cleaner. So get washing.”

“Which means you should go second,” Chuck insisted. He snatched the wash rag, however, just to keep it from flapping against his nose. “That’s logical.”

“Your version of logic.” He gave a derisive chuckle and bent one of his legs, making it easier to nudge the kid’s calf. “Think about it, kid. You’re filthy. You wash that off in the water, and it gets on me. Then I’m dirty.”

“But that’s -”

“- so this is what you’re gonna do instead -”

“Wow. You can be just a weensy bit -”

“Besides shut up,” Casey interrupted. His attention flicked up briefly as the nudge became more of a stroke along Chuck’s leg – a few toes tickling his wet flesh – and the slippery touch was enough to silence him. “When you finish the job I started in the creek, the water’s still fresh enough for your dirty … sweet little ass to clean up.” He lifted his foot, brushed the bottom of it over his ankle, stroked the calf. “Think you can handle that bit of logic?”

“Wait. Did you say dirty little -?”

“Here. Start with the chest.” Passing off the cloth signaled the end of the argument. In Casey’s mind, at least. Linking his fingers behind his head, he settled back again, wriggled his shoulders, and let out a breath. “Find the bar of soap. I sat on the damn thing when I first got in, so it should be right … around here. Oh – and I’m doing my own face. Don’t need suds in the eye.”

“Jesus, you can be an ass,” Chuck mumbled, but his brows drew down as he weighed the argument. “God, I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but you actually made complete sense right then.” 

“Need to listen to me more often, brown eyes. Do what I ask you to do.”

“Humph. If I did that, I’d never get dressed and out of bed. The animals would starve, the raccoons would take over my garden -”

“Are you gonna start washing, or do I have wash myself?”

“I guess that’s my cue,” Chuck said, wringing out the wash cloth.

“Now you’re using that noggin,” Casey acknowledged. He watched as Chuck bent forward and began rubbing the slope of his neck with the wet cloth. “Go slow, kid. We’ve … got all the time in the world tonight.”

As clear as the sound of rain clattering on the roof, Chuck heard what he meant by that. You need to make this last.

Time was short. They only had a couple of days – maybe one. Not that Casey had been forthcoming with any details. But did it matter? 

Chuck’s attention drifted to his broad chest, then lingered on the column of his throat, the sweep of his shoulders. He took the soap and began to lather it in to the wash rag. It was as if he could sit there, just watching Casey’s face while he unwound, lying back with his eyes closed. Yes, he could make it last. Maybe a little longer. 

Studying his face, serene yet sharp angled, it still made him wonder why he was here. This man seemed like the last person in the world who needed someone, especially an awkward kid like him. So why?

Shaking that off, Chuck took Casey’s arm, felt the flex of a muscle before it gave in to his touch. If Casey thought this was not going to be a real washing, and instead other things, well, the big guy here was in for an awakening. 

Chuck was going to start by washing him. Only that.

Okay, so maybe his brain felt like a fuzzy mess at the moment – thanks to the warm suds, slippery slick flesh pressed to him, and of course Casey’s hard on poking out of the water. 

That last one was especially distracting. 

“Not gonna wash itself, kid,” Casey said. 

“How did you do that?” Chuck gaped. “You didn’t even open his eyes!”

“Don’t need to. Get washing, hm?” 

“The lesson of patience escaped you as a child, didn’t it?”

Casey made a noise in his chest and lifted a shoulder. 

"Sheesh.” Chuck fumbled a bit with the cloth and got to work. Not that this was work. No, hardly. Work was planting and feeding and foraging, and this was … well, not even close. “Let me know if this … is what you want?” Swallowing, he dragged his hand over Casey’s chest, down one arm, then slowly scrubbed over the top of his knuckles. 

“Yeah … nice hands, city boy ….” The growly noise encouraged him to renew his efforts. Over his pecs, the middle of his stomach, up the sternum. Then Casey rumbled, “Get the legs, too. Wanna … feel that.”

“Boy, silly me.” The lop-sided grin went unnoticed, as Casey didn’t even bother lifting an eyelid. Only because it wasn’t worth moving, not when he seemed pretty damned content. “I thought this was about getting cleaned up.” 

“Sure you did.” Casey snorted and leaned his head back on the rim of the tub. “Feet, too. Don’t worry, they’ve been soakin’.”

“Your … feet?” The kid wasn’t a fool, though, so his palm had already moved under the water, down his legs, back up. Between them … only to there. Still not brave enough, he stopped just short of the scrotum, the cloth resting on the inside of his firm thighs. When his fingers went down and inched up again, Casey obligingly spread his legs to the touch, as much as he could - which wasn’t much, considering the cramped quarters. Not that either of them was offering to get out or anything. 

“Shit … feel that,” Chuck murmured, moving a hand over the flex of his upper thighs, then the muscles of his lower legs, running the cloth all the way down to his ankles. When he got to a foot, he went over the top of it, circled around to scrub the bottom. 

Casey moaned in appreciation. “God, kid. Keep that up, and maybe someday I will ….” His voice trailed. Probably when he realized that was dangerously close to breaking a rule. Don’t say it. Not coming back here. We don’t fit. 

Concentrate, will you? So with a final rub over both legs, Chuck withdrew his hands reluctantly and moved back to Casey’s chest. He figured that the first time was to get the dirt off. The second time was because he wanted to trace over his flesh and discover a little a more, settle into the pleasurable feel of moist heat and skin. Listen to the staccato beat of the rain over overhead ….

It was silent for a while. Chuck massaged his body for about ten minutes more, until Casey’s left hand stirred. “You awake?” the kid asked at last.

“Mm.” 

“Is that a yes?”

“Um-hm. Give me a few more minutes,” Casey said, his eyes hidden, voice neutral. “One of my shoulders – this one,” and he lifted one, “feels … like it’s still dirty.”

Chuck smiled. Just kept kneading that area. He focused on his hands, the wet skin underneath, traveling over his shoulder, digging into muscle. Sensing he had neglected a certain area – not that one – he then went up to the back of his neck. Felt a tiny curl just beginning to lap over his collar. “I think I’m done,” Chuck finally had to say, resting one lean arm over the top of the tub. 

“Hardly.” Casey opened one eye to a slit. Capturing a few of Chuck’s fingers, he squeezed them, as if claiming ownership from here on out for what they did, and then let out a breath. “But I guess I should get out.”

“What?” Chuck’s hand fell. “Get out?” My God. The kid sat up and blinked at him. He was actually climbing out as he spoke. 

“Two reasons, cupcake,” Casey said, and as he stood, the kid felt the surge and ebb of the water lowering around him. “One, my legs have fallen asleep with you sitting on me -”

“To be fair,” Chuck stammered, shifting his attention up … up the long trails of water dripping from his naked limbs, “I gave you the choice.”

“And two, I might have a better view if I sit right here.” Casey patted the kid’s cheek in a way that could only be described as patronizing, and stepped out of the tub. “You were actually using that brain for some good when you brought the chair, hm?”

“That chair was always here, so I had nothing -” Whoa. Hold on. “View?” Chuck’s mouth fell open. “You’re not going to -”

“Towel?” 

Casey gave him an amused look and turned away, grabbing the drying cloth without waiting. The light from the lamp flickered, pale and gold, on every inch of him. And with the water glistening, it rolled off his shoulders, the slope of his ass, the back of his taut thighs …. 

The kid had to blink the water out of his eyes. What the hell? Why did he have to get out?!

But he did, and now he stood with this back to the kid, methodically drying off with the towel, sweeping between his shoulder blades, down his tight muscular ass. When he came around to the front, he turned to face the tub, bringing the cloth to his chest and lower abdomen. Then his hair, rubbing the towel briskly over it, and taking a few seconds to comb his fingers through the short brown locks.

“Thanks. I’ll just get it myself.” Casey eyed him and smirked.

“Get … what?”

“Nothing.” Laughing softly, Casey tossed the towel on a peg next to the potbelly stove. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“Oh.” Chuck flushed. Busted. He got busy pretending to look for the bar of soap. Then he saw that it was in his hand. Crap! “I should just … you know, wash or something.”

“Or you could do more of that sittin’ and starin’ like a damn idiot.”

Chuck glowered, but he kept his mouth shut because there was no winning that one. Before the kid could get in more trouble, he wrung out the wash rag, and started with the back of his neck, and then took the cloth over his shoulders.

The scrape of the chair across the floor made him look up, just as Casey positioned it at one end of the bathtub. Smiling down at him, he then settled into it, leaned back and draped his legs over the side of the tub so that the water reached his calves. “Heh. Not bad,” he said, giving the surface a little swish with his feet. 

“Now what are you doing?” Chuck raised a brow when one of those large feet came very close to a sensitive part of his anatomy. “Were … you serious? You’re going to watch me … take a bath?”

“So far, it’s been just a lot of dawdling and splashing, but yeah. That’s the idea,” Casey replied. “Didn’t think you’d have a problem with it.” He stretched one foot between Chuck’s legs and adjusted his aim with a big toe under the water, brushing it gently down his length. “Or was I wrong?”

“Ah – okay … okay.” Chuck scooted back from the lewd touch and drew his attention down. It took all his effort not to show how the contact rippled through him, only because he didn’t want to embarrass himself. With his luck, that would come later. “If that’s what you want … I guess? But try to sit there and be good, okay?”

Casey chuckled. “You should look at me.” Another swish of water with his foot.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Chuck answered, keeping his eyes on the wavering surface. 

“You caused it kid,” Casey said under his breath. “Now you want me to hide it?”

“You have a subtle way of breaking the ice, don’t you?” Chuck dared to shift his gaze up, drawing his attention to Casey’s upper torso, the strength of his arms, his muscular body sprawled in full repose. 

Oh, God. Except for that long, fine dick straining up from his lap. Yeah, there was that. And if his intention was to make the kid remember last night, the press of his thighs, that hard cock pounding into him … well, that worked. 

“No, no, no…,” Chuck breathed. His stomach tightened.

“What was that, kid?”

“Soap ….” When Chuck turned his face up quickly and focused, his throat went dry. “I seem to have lost -”

Casey pushed it towards him with a foot. 

“My mistake,” Chuck said. “It was right next to my -”

“Hand?”

“Mm. Um-hm.”

“You have some dirt on you.” When Casey spoke, he casually slid one leg further, skimming it along Chuck’s outer thigh. “Right there. You should get it.”

“Wh-where?” Chuck was mindful of the provocative pose directly in front of him, if he only looked up again … which he would not. Because that was exactly what Casey wanted. How could he just sit there, bare and without an ounce of inhibition?

Shit. Who was he kidding? If anyone could get away with it, Casey was the guy. 

Not daring to lift his eyes, he could hear the larger man threading his fingers through his slick wet hair, giving it another little shake. That wasn’t nearly as distracting as the way he had his legs slightly spread, trapping him, feet brushing up against his outer thighs. 

Bravely, the kid outright ignored him. Well, sort of. Chuck couldn’t help at least letting his eyes travel down the expanse of legs crowding him in, trailing to one of his narrow calves. It gave him a case of nerves, being watched like this, but … he had to run his hand over it. As he did, the tickle of warm water and light hair under his palm loosened the tension in his chest. 

He was doing this. It wasn’t a made-up fantasy. 

Feeling a little bolder, the kid dug his fingers into the nearest lower leg, watching the flesh turn white where he had pressed in with his fingertips. “God, that’s hard …,” some idiot said.

“Done playing down there?” Casey asked.

Chuck dropped his hand and looked to the side. “I wasn’t playing ... I was only noticing -”

“Kid.” There was a nudge against his leg. “You have to look at me if you want to know.”

“Know what?” 

He would bet a silver dollar that the giant residing over his bath rolled his eyes right then. “The dirt?” Casey poked him with a toe. “Thought you wanted to clean yourself?”

“I do,” Chuck argued. Oh. Hell, where did the wash rag go again?

“Looking for this?” As Chuck scrabbled for it, Casey lifted the cloth out of the water with one toe.

“So you were hiding it from me?” Considering that Casey was laughing, he grabbed the rag quickly, and began to lather it up. 

“Brown eyes … I was pointing here – that’s where you have some dirt.” His voice began to get all low and sexy at the end, like it could put ripples in the water. The same as the slow circles he made with his foot over Chuck’s upper thigh. “But you still haven’t looked.” He breathed out, and Chuck heard some exasperation. “Going to avoid me all night?”

“No … it’s not that.” Chuck obeyed, though the daunting sight of a naked man sprawled out in front of him, his hard cock in that perfect curve, was still … imposing. The first thing his eyes landed on was the rigid crown, right there where he had touched the night before, where his thumb leisurely -

“I meant up here, pancake.” The sensual laughter in Casey’s voice pissed him off a little. “Unless there’s something else you’d rather be doing ….”

“You’re enjoying this too much,” Chuck grumbled. Raising his dark eyes to the other man, he saw Casey studying the strands of hair that had to be plastered over his forehead and some that had already looped up crazily. “Sorry, it just does whatever it wants,” the kid explained, flattening it down.

Casey watched his face closely. One of his toes rose from the water to give a playful poke in his stomach. “You have some here.” He pointed to the side of his own face, tapping, meaning Chuck should wash there. “Hey, I’m just trying to help you get all of it,” he said at Chuck’s grimace. 

“Uh, no thanks.” Wrinkling his nose at how scruffy he must look, Chuck scrubbed the side of his cheek. “Think of it this way, though. That’s proof I was working hard today, too. Not just you with your-,” and he stopped to wave the cloth, “you know, muscles and whatever else God gave you when he skipped the rest of us.”

That startled a little laugh out of him. “And here.” Casey brought up brought up a hand to place a fingertip on his own meaty pec. “Got another streak right there.” Then he put a little more stretch into one of his legs, drawing a foot around Chuck’s bottom. ‘You should get it.”

“Watch the feet,” Chuck blurted, jolting forward - which in hindsight, might’ve been his strategy. At first glance, there was no sign of dirt where Casey had pointed, but he washed his chest anyway so that the larger man would stop looking at him like that.

Not only did that not happen, if anything, the glint of humor in his eyes kindled, regarding him with smoky blue intent. 

The kid cocked his head at him in curiosity. All right, now that he was looking, he had to check him out. When would he get scenery like that again? Not along the trail when he rode Jackson into town. Heck no.

“Face is up here, princess.”

“I – I was just … asshole.” As Chuck averted his eyes, he began looking for that pesky bar of soap. “Really, the truth is I’m wondering what’s so funny.”

“More here.”

Chuck refused to look up, no matter what images went through his head right then. “If you actually use sentences that are more than duo-syllabic, who knows? You may even be able to convey what the hell you mean.”

“Your lower belly.”

“Fine. Geez.” Chuck began dutifully scrubbing that locale without even looking. “I suppose it would be too much to ask for – maybe a tiny bit of privacy? Like turning your head while I … finish the rest?”

Casey grunted at that. “Not only would it be asking too much,” he told him, a toe scraping languidly over his ribcage, “it defeats the purpose of being in this chair in the first place.” 

“Incorrigible,” Chuck muttered, cupping his hand to scoop and drag water over his chest. “I don’t get it. Why are you -” 

“Mind if I shut you up there, so we can keep going?” 

Chuck shot him a sour look. “Amazing how you can do that. I mean, it sounded like a question, but with both know – ah!” He stopped there and sucked in a breath. It had something to do with Casey’s foot sliding down to rub the wet skin where Chuck had just washed, scraping back and forth a few times. 

“One more place,” Casey said as he lifted his foot to trace the flat hard nipples, then skimmed lower to the silken hair leading downward.

Chuck couldn’t help it, he closed his eyes. Stroking his skin in absent little lines, Casey’s toes passed over his cock … right before Casey changed direction to explore his stomach. Teasing him, that bastard. His foot stayed close to his abdomen, skidding dangerously close to a place begging for attention, but instead brushed over his stomach muscles, following the indent of his naval …. 

“You should open your eyes,” Casey said after a silence, the only other sound the water swishing around his feet, touching his skin in tiny loops. One more circle, then another. “Get that last streak of mud.”

Chuck moved his hips, but the touch was gone. “You … you can’t do what you want to if you kill me first.” He let out a shaky breath and opened his eyes. “I was hoping that you – oh, God.”

“Yeah?” Casey was leaning fully against the chair, his expression moving between levity and something else. “You should get this one.”

“Oh my God! That’s not funny!” The kid’s hand flew up to slap over his eyes. Even so, he had caught the fleeting vision of Casey’s long firm fingers circling himself, his hand giving an idle stroke. 

Chuck’s protest was drowned out by a low filthy laugh. 

“I have to differ with you, city boy,” Casey said, still chuckling to himself. “I could do that five more times tonight, and still laugh like hell every time.” A toe nudged the hand still over his eyes. “God, you are too easy.”

“Why would you do that?!” Chuck struggled for words. “You have no decency!”

“Well, you have enough for both of us, sweetmeat, so we’re even.” Something patted his cheek. That was worrisome for a second or two, until Chuck decided he wouldn’t dare. “You can open your eyes now.”

“You think I’m going to fall for that?”

“Let’s see ‘em, brown eyes.”

“No,” Chuck answered stubbornly. If he removed his hand, Casey would also get an eyeful of his red cheeks, and that would only lead to more teasing. “Not until I know for certain that you’re not ….”

“Pointing out where you still have a streak of dirt?” He didn’t miss or tease that time. Lazily, his slippery foot traced the length of his cock, his big toe trailing around the rim of his crown, and this was going to make him crazy …. 

“Ga – Ca-sey ….” 

“You should do it,” he heard Casey suggest in the same way he would say pass the fucking butter.

“I’m not … I can’t.” God, did Casey really think he would let him watch? He wouldn’t even watch himself doing that! What if what Ellie told him was true?

Did he have to think of that now?

Two lessons crossed his mind right then. This part was muzzy, but it had an element of control – controlling him. Which led to the second boggling lesson of the night - sex with John Casey was just a little intimidating! Was … that something erotic he missed in his carnal education? Omitted somewhere in the timeline between ‘I’m a twenty-two-year-old-virgin’ and ‘my roommate got me drunk, fucked me, and then he left’? 

Good thing there was still no resentment there.

He heard the chair creek as Casey shifted. Without looking, Chuck guessed he had leaned over him, because the heat of his proximity washed over the kid like the trickles of warm water over his chest. A hand caught his neck gently, a thumb stroking over the curve of his throat, a quick pass along his jaw. 

“That’s okay,” the larger man responded, his fingers playing with a few curls over his nape. “Maybe that was too fast for you. Besides, brown eyes, there are better things to do now that you’re almost clean.”

-x-End Wings of Grace Chapter Nineteen-x-


	20. Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

-x-

“Better things?” Chuck tilted his head back to scowl up at Casey. It lost some of the effect due to the hand over his eyes. “Though I can think of – oh, I don’t know – a million things better than what you just proposed right there!”

Casey laughed. “Stay here.” To ensure he did, one beefy hand landed on Chuck’s shoulder, another mashed down on his wet head, fingers pushing through his dark waves. And for some reason, they didn’t let go. 

“Here’s something for you – I wasn’t planning on leaving.” Chuck tensed when the hand in his hair tightened. “And on an unrelated note, I resent the almost clean insinuation, because you can –”

“Let’s finish the job. Ready, pup?”

“I – I hate to ask - and really, don’t feel obligated to show me what you mean by ready. My general state of readiness has never been one of my strong points –” 

“Nothing wrong with your state of readiness, kid.” Casey glanced down and winked. 

Uh-oh. Chuck had no time to be offended, because the look on his face warned of mischief. 

And since Chuck happened to be the only naked man in a bathtub who had gathered Casey’s attention, it didn’t take a genius to know the real target for that intended mischief.

“What are you talking about?” Chuck asked, trying to wriggle his head free. Something like a rope tightened in the kid’s lower body – and that was when he had the faculties to suck in a mouthful of air –

\- the millisecond before those fingers on his head clenched and shoved, ducking him under the surface. Five seconds. Five whole end of the universe life passing in front of his eyes seconds until the strong hand clamped in tight, steered his head up and over the surface again.

Chuck came up sputtering. Without thinking, one of his hands knotted into a fist and shot out in defense. One punch to the hip. Another to his thigh. It wasn’t familiar territory, having a panicked physical reaction, but neither was getting drowned in a bathtub. “Ca –stph!”

“What … the hell.” Before he could make contact again, Casey caught his wrist in the air and held on. His hard blue stare made Chuck want to slide backwards if he could. “Did you just take a swing at me?” Casey asked.

“I - it was –”

“Is that some obscure geek mating ritual? Get on your knees and throw a punch?” 

“Me?” Chuck blinked water out of his eyes, doing his best not to shriek. “You were trying to drown me –!”

“Drown you.” Casey took a moment to contemplate this. He even let go. 

And since it was not even possible, that was not hurt in Casey’s eyes. 

Except it was. The kid had been told a few - dozen … thousand - times that he could be oblivious, but in that look, underneath the shields, the injury was palpable. He might’ve ruined all of his plotting and an hour of hauling buckets – and a lot more. Blew it, just by poking holes in their already fragile trust. 

“What – what I meant there,” Chuck started, backpedaling, “is that –”

Casey made a low growl and let Chuck snatch his hand back. “Even now, you still think I would do that.” With that one statement, he put it out there.

“I thought … I’m such an idiot.” All right, so maybe Casey was not completely innocent here, but – had he really slugged him? “You … you were just playing with me, huh?”

Casey shrugged in a way that said what else, dip shit?

“I’m sorry,” Chuck heard himself say. “Are you okay?”

Casey snorted. “Are you serious?”

“Point,” Chuck replied, bringing up a hand to touch his bare thigh. “But I’m still sorry for that.”

“Just be quiet, Chuck.” Leaning down, Casey took his face with both hands, tugging him close for a kiss. Chuck closed his eyes, and when he felt a sweep of tongue over his lips, he parted them and let Casey take a taste. Clean, almost sweet like the water. As he moved one palm to run his fingers through his hair, Casey wordlessly kissed his cheek, his neck, and the kid felt his lips moving lazily along his shoulder …. 

Oh. Nice apology, if that’s what this was.

If only he had known a few days ago, this is how he spoke. A firm touch, a soft caress combined with sarcasm; that was his way of flirting. Seduction by gentle coercion. He knew it now, just by the way Casey’s mouth curved against his skin, sliding his hands up the side of his neck, a certain possession and reassurance he intended to communicate in one gesture. 

Chuck swallowed hard, but he stayed still, motionless, let him touch his neck. Cupping the opposite side of his head, Casey lightly set his teeth on the long tendon, teasing, giving it a little lick. 

“God … okay, th-that’s good.” Chuck tipped his head to the side, showed that he trusted him enough to let him curl a big palm around it, and hold on. Taking the invitation, Casey’s tongue worried a smooth spot under his ear, nibbled it and traced the mark he left. “That … too,” the kid breathed.

But then it was gone. Casey pulled back, and Chuck felt the brush of his lips to his temple. “Guess I shouldn’t have done that,” he admitted. “Who knows - maybe next time, you’ll let me get you wet without throwing a sissy punch, eh, kid?”

“Actually, that was not my best effort. If I wanted to – which I don’t, no, no, no – I could probably – let’s stop there.” 

“Good thinking.”

Chuck smiled shyly. “Hey, it was our first fight – not really, but the first one like this. And considering the circumstances,” he paused while his brain filled in, you’re leaving, “it’s probably our last. Especially if you keep doing … that.” Chuck let out a sigh as Casey’s tongue began to tease the edge of his ear. “Not that you should … stop or anything.”

“Thought you’d be used to me by now,” Casey said, though it was getting harder to think when he bit on his earlobe.

“I … am,” the kid replied, and yes, even someone as thick skinned as Casey could pick up on the hesitation. “I mean, you’re not the easiest person to get to know, and you have to admit our first encounter was a little awkward.” 

“When we tried to shoot each other?”

“Precisely – mm.” Casey chose that moment to move for Chuck’s throat again, and the rest of that weird night came out in a gasp. “Don’t want to hear that, I see – gah. Okay, how about this? We could start over.”

Casey half smiled. “I had no problem where we were.” 

“Hey – your foot is touching my –”

Before he could say something polite like posterior, Casey slinked both of his feet along his hips, making a quick and slippery vice. Those sturdy ankles hooked behind the kid’s his lower back, and Casey’s calves flexed on either side of Chuck’s thighs. The kid was reminded for the hundredth time how strong his legs were. Like damn metal bars.

“C’mere, brown eyes,” Casey said, after Chuck’s butt was already sliding in towards the end of the tub. Not waiting for the argument, Casey didn’t stop until the kid had to fold his legs up, knees bent, sitting within the spread of Casey’s thighs. 

“I think I left the soap back there.” Chuck then cringed, because really, who would think of soap right now?

“Too far away, sitting on the other end.” 

The realization that his eyes were now closer to another’s man cock than ever before kept his line of sight averted to the bottom of the tub. Or the washrag, or Casey’s leg, or hell, anything else. 

“There’s a little less legroom,” Chuck stammered. “Not that it’s important.” Because if he fought him, one, that would just be embarrassing, and maybe get someone drowned by accident, and two … well, face facts. There were way more fun things they could be doing, rather than washing – and considering almost all of Chuck’s sexual experience was a ripe twenty-four hours old, he figured this was Casey’s way of telling him he was clean enough. And maybe ready enough. 

Chuck was okay with that. He was the one who got them naked and in the tub in the first place, and truthfully, he was at a bit of a loss as to how to get from naked to … biting and touching. Casey seemed more at ease in the role of determining next steps.

Wasn’t that what he did? Particularly the dragging and taking charge element. The kid had already figured out that manhandling was a jagged puzzle piece called foreplay with Casey. He showed affection by being rough. Not really rough, that was the wrong word. Handsy.

Like now. Still wriggling, Chuck tried to free an arm, or even his hand, but they were pinned to his sides by a pair of narrow yet powerful calves – and if he could just breathe for a minute, he’d realize that Casey was about to make the overall bathing experience a bit more appealing.

“Yeah. That’s better,” Casey said. 

“Except for the part where I can’t quite bend my legs?”

Casey shook his head, but he did loosen the hold a tiny bit. “You really think you’re going to stay like that?”

“Like this?” God, he hoped not. “Any other time, you just say what you want, don’t you?”

“Yeah?” Smiling down at him, one of Casey’s ankles dragged up Chuck’s ribcage while he mulled it over. “Okay, you’re on a roll, kid,” he said. “Knees. Get on them.”

“Um, seems like a good way to crack a kneecap,” the kid faltered. Then he shivered at the sensation of a toe skimming along his back. Finding the hollow of his spine, it slid up and down, caressing. 

Nerves gave way to babble. 

“The tub isn’t exactly – ah.”

“Use this.” Casey held up the washrag. “Tuck it under there.” 

Chuck grabbed the cloth from his hand but didn’t move.

“Look up.”

“I could – it’s not like I couldn’t –”

“Guess not, since you haven’t done it yet.”

Chuck wanted to, he really did want to look up, but his eyes caught his cock on the way, hard and achy and level with his … mouth. The vision of the most handsome man he had ever laid eyes on, and now naked before him, should’ve gone further – over his chest, up to his face – but, no. His cock was right there, needing Chuck to touch several parts of him, or do other things …. It was what Casey wanted, or he wouldn’t be holding him, or sitting naked in that chair. 

“You have my attention,” Chuck managed, the warm exhalation making Casey’s dick bob towards his mouth. And damn. It was just last night that he had the girth and hard flesh between his fingers. His eyes nearly crossed when he focused, noticing a tiny bead of pre-come on the tip, that his cock was still moist from the bath …. 

Reflexively, the kid licked his lips, and then turned beet red.

“Good,” Casey said, and something had made him laugh deeply. “Because I was hoping there was more.”

Immediately, the kid felt a pool of saliva in the back of his throat. He was amazed at his body’s reaction, muscles going rigid, tongue getting wet, at the idea that Casey wanted him to suck his cock. 

This was new – all of it. It was only last night that he had this done to him for the first time ever. 

Well. Think about it. Was there a way to screw this up? Wasn’t it simple? The way Casey did it, working an orgasm out of him while he held him against the fence? Tongue movement, swishing, heat and saliva? 

There was only one way to find out; you only learned to fly by jumping. And it shocked the hell out of him, but he wanted to learn. 

“There is. More, I mean.” To show he was willing, Chuck put his hands on Casey’s thighs, leaned in closer. An aroma of pear soap and clean water hit him, mingling with the heavy scent of male arousal. “And I was hoping that if I got us this far tonight, that’d you … tell me what you like this time.”

Chuck watched the chest movement of a hitch of breath. If he wasn’t looking up at his eyes now to gauge the reaction, he would’ve noticed a short thrust, Casey’s dick dipping forward to find some friction. 

“Because … I’m okay with this,” the kid went on. 

“God, cupcake,” he muttered, sliding a hand lightly up his forearm to his shoulder. “I thought I was gonna have to send you a telegraph to get you here.”

Chuck gave him a questioning look. “What would it say?” Man. When did he get so brazen? But hearing Casey say it would be so much better than his own voice tripping over the words. “I … I think this time, you tell me. Isn’t that your advice from last night?”

“Figured as much.” Casey used his thigh to nudge him. “I should’ve known you’d like that. Getting told what to do.” He bent down, straight into his eyes. “You wanna suck me off, don’t you?”

Holy …. Chuck started to open his mouth, but the words got all balled up and muddled. It was true, although the scientific corner of his brain – and he hated that corner for this – did have to send up a question on the cubic measure plus circumference of the challenge. Some things in life should not be overanalyzed, the kid decided. 

As he looked up, Casey had his eyes fixed on his face. “Look at you,” he said in that low rumble, his foot touching the knot of his hip bone. “I like the view from here. Those brown eyes, staring up at me like that ….” 

“I thought you’d like … other things, too.”

“I will.” Casey gave a stroke to the side of his head, fingers carding into the kid’s thick hair. As if Chuck wasn’t already caught in his gaze, he then cupped his jaw and forced his chin up, studied him with narrowed eyes.

“Is something wrong?” Chuck asked without moving his jaw.

“It’s just … striking, that’s all,” Casey murmured. 

Chuck wondered how badly Casey was screwing with his head this time. “What?”

Casey’s mouth quirked up as he watched Chuck’s face, dripping wet and confused. “You look just like that little cocksucker,” he said.

Chuck’s eyes widened at the dirty word. Staring up at John Casey, he had to ask himself why on earth had the heavy rain drops, pattering on the roof, affected his hearing, or caused the misfiring of synapses in his brain, because there was no way Casey had just said that.

“Did you just call me,” Chuck started, heat filling his gut, “a co –”

“No, not you,” Casey broke in, as if that made it okay. 

Chuck waited, and then jerked his head back abruptly, the element of surprise enough for Casey to break the grip. “Now? When I’m here – like this!” Great. His voice was getting screechy. “Why – why would you choose this exact moment –” He stopped to wave a hand between them, because being naked in a bathtub on his knees didn’t need to be explained – “to tell me that?!” 

There were sticky moments in life, and God knows, he’s had more than enough to count, but this put his name in ink in a record book of some sort. 

Unbelievable. He wasted hot water and candles on John Casey! 

“Easy, kid – what I meant –”

“You … you big jerk!” Chuck strained to lean back, though being clamped between Casey’s calves made it more of an intense squirming than anything. So when the futility of that move became apparent, the kid scowled up at him and folded his arms over his bare chest. “Are you saying I’m a substitute? And you picked this moment to tell me that I look like ... who exactly?” 

“Hang on, cowboy.” One of those meat hooks landed on his shoulder. “You’re going hurt yourself if you keep –”

“Oh, ho, but there is good news. The man who I happen to look like must’ve given you a pleasant memory, considering the – oh, I don’t know – angle?” Chuck delivered it with sarcasm, knowing that being a wiseass wasn’t going to get him out of the scissor hold anytime soon, but he wasn’t exactly in a peacemaking mood. “Would you mind moving your damn legs?!”

“Not until you settle down.” Casey gave him a look that was partly amused, but on its way to impatient. “I don’t want to –”

“Okay, fine. I don’t either,” Chuck interrupted. “So let me go – I want to get out of the tub if you’re done here –”

“No can do, button.” Mirroring his obstinate pose, Casey folded his arms over his chest and sat back in the chair, dismissing the racket Chuck had created by sloshing water over the sides. “Not letting go until you listen.”

More squirming just got him a foot to the side of ribcage. It didn’t hurt, but it held enough promise of trouble if he kept it up. 

Still, bullshit. 

“If you think I want to hear about your past conquests – or … or your penchant for okay - I’ll admit it: tall, gangly men with … you know, brown hair that won’t behave, and maybe brains, well, you can suck your own –”

“I said easy, tiger.” Casey just looked bored. “It’s not what you think.” 

“Really, because I think that if there was a contest right now, it’d be a toss-up between your impeccable timing and your charm.” 

“Was it my charm that made you draw this nice bath tonight, kid?” That bastard grinned down at him when he said it, taking a second to swirl one of his toes in the water. “Never been told that was a one of my strengths.”

Testiness spread over Chuck’s face. “You should know if you don’t move your leg, I’m going to –” His gaze landed on one of Casey’s calves. He took a second to analyze yet another challenge; bands of muscle along those very strong lower legs. God! “Well, I’ll scream really loud, and I can be annoyingly vehement if I – ah –”

Casey’s legs tightened right then. 

Why did he never listen?! 

“You like to holler, eh?” Casey reached down and touched his cheek. Gave it a little pat. “I’ll take that under advisement. But the annoying part, yeah, I can vouch for it.”

“You know, when I find the bar of soap, well ….” Chuck swished his hand around, but dammit! Where did it go? “I can think of a dozen ways you can shove it up y –”

“Chuck.” 

At the sound of his name from Casey’s lips, the kid’s head snapped up. He stopped struggling, and instead raised a brow at the other man. “It took you almost a week, and now – you use my real name?”

Casey lifted a shoulder. “He was a prostitute.” 

“He?” 

A jumble of thoughts Chuck recognized as the precursor of nervous babbling were right there on this tongue. If there was ever a time he should hold back, well … that wasn’t going to be now. 

“You heard me.”

The kid sat up. He had been looking for soap a minute ago, but that was all but forgotten. “A man? How would you ….” He inclined his head as he thought about it. “Who even knew there was such a thing? Where would –”

“There was a place … outside St. Louis.” 

“St. Louis. You’ve … spent a while there,” Chuck said. “That wasn’t the first time you’ve mentioned it.” Plenty of pieces were still missing, hell, gigantic holes, but the ones that gradually fit together were beginning to tell his story. It was like picking up a book in the middle, the kid figured, and trying to make any sense of it. “Am I right?”

“I spent some time there. Between jobs.”

“Jobs? Like what?”

He gave the kid an eye roll, saying that was far enough. “Being out on the road makes you appreciate a hot bath.” Casey’s legs relaxed around him, dropping into the water now that he had the kid’s attention. “Maybe … a warm body to go with it.”

“But, you should at least explain –”

“Sagebrush ranch.”

“A ranch?” Chuck shook his head. “What does a ranch have to do with this?”

“Better question is, what did it have to do with a ranch?” Casey answered, eyes dancing with quiet laughter. “Madame Satine wasn’t exactly raising cattle.”

“I – uh ….” Chuck felt his face burning. “It was the name of the brothel, I take it.”

“Always thought you caught on fast, princess,” Casey remarked, even as his toe drew a moist line up Chuck’s ribcage, getting a jolt from him when it crossed ticklish terrain. “Can’t believe I found such a smart boy.”

“But – hold on. A brothel … with men, though,” Chuck went on cautiously. “I’ve never … well, thought that you could get that kind of … service at a place like that.”

“Heh.” Casey considered him, and because he had been digging all day, he put a little stretch into leaning back. That made it convenient to wrap his long calf around Chuck’s middle, impishly this time. “If you did know all about it, that would make you the best poker-faced Romeo west of the state line, and me the worst judge of character to cross it.” He let Chuck digest that as he jostled him with his foot, and then chuckled. “I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but that isn’t one, kid. I don’t misjudge people. Sure as hell pegged you.” 

“So you slept with him?” Chuck blurted, proving to Casey that his brain was still stuck back at the ranch. 

“Slept?” Casey snorted. “Quite a question for a boy who couldn’t look me in the eyes for the first three days I was here.”

When he realized Casey had a point, the kid put a hand over his own mouth. “I shouldn’t have asked,” he said between his fingers. “None of my business.” And in a few days, would it matter?

All the same, Casey didn’t look away, nor was he disturbed by the question. “Nah. I took a bath. He … helped.” 

“Uh, helped?”

“You like everything spelled out, don’t ya?” Casey asked. His blue eyes were brilliant, like drawing him into a clear pond as he moved one of his feet to the front, swiped it back and forth over Chuck’s lower belly. “Okay … yeah.” He indulged the kid with an answer by first bending down to get in his face. “He washed me –”

“So far … sounds innocent enough –”

“- and when I got out, he got on his knees and sucked me off,” Casey explained blandly. “Was that what you wanted to know?”

“Well, I ….” The kid’s plastered curls sprung loose when his forehead wrinkled. “Not … not so innocent.”

“But almost as fun as a shooting contest.” Casey poked him, as if Chuck could chime in here. “Eh, kid?”

“I – I wouldn’t know.”

“Heh. Lots you don’t know.” While he thought about it, that pesky foot began tracing the wet flesh along Chuck’s inner thigh. “Always wondered if it could be more fun that that ….”

“Um, wait,” Chuck started, glancing down when the roaming toe missed the obvious by that much. “I … but he – I mean, how –?”

“How much? What, you think I fleeced the little hustler?” Casey watched his face as he guided one of Chuck’s hands to his thigh. “Payment was always the same. One silver dollar on the washstand.”

“Alrighty.” Chuck blushed, even though he was the one asking the questions. “Seems fair, I guess. Not that I have … you know, never mind. But …this man ….”

“You can say the word prostitute, can’t you, kid?”

Chuck cleared his throat and gave him a pained look. “The one you … spent time with,” he went on, carefully choosing his words. “The one you liked. He looked like me?”

“Do you have a twin brother?”

“I think I would know if I did,” Chuck replied, lowering his lashes at the embarrassing revelation that he looked exactly like a man who sold his body. “Were you … attracted to him?”

“He … had good eyes. Like yours.”

“What else?”

“I liked his mouth,” Casey answered, chuckling with deep pleasure at a memory Chuck couldn’t fathom.

“I think you’re making this up.”

Casey grunted, searching intently into his dark eyes. “He looked like you,” he acknowledged, fingers tightening as he brought Chuck’s hand further up his thigh. “Let’s just say, Madame Satine catered to a wider variety of clientele. Always kept a few nice-looking kids … under her employ. She felt that she owed me a few favors, so it was an even deal.”

Nice-looking? Tentatively, Chuck scooted closer, getting another whiff of soap and clean skin. “Why did she owe you anything?”

When a muscle flexed in his jaw, his expression going impassive, Chuck knew that he was approaching the territory where he would get firmly pushed back. As it was, the larger man’s attention on him made him fidget with the soap. 

It slipped through his fingers when Casey ventured on cautiously. “A competitor in town thought it would be a beneficial arrangement to combine their … businesses,” Casey said, counting ribs with his toe, trying to work out another jolt from him. “Truth was, the greedy bastard wanted one less contender for customers. Drive her out, eh?”

Chuck gave him a curious, open expression, all innocence, while his hand began to caress, absently stroking Casey’s thigh. “This is definitely one of those times when a person shouldn’t ask if they don’t want to know the answer… but, what happened?”

First, Casey circled Chuck’s wrist, not hard, but the message was clear to keep it there, keep touching him like that. “I convinced him it would be a beneficial arrangement if he fucked off.”

“Uh, did this convincing include – oh, I don’t know – guns?”

Casey shrugged, bringing his foot to rest along Chuck’s upper thigh. “Is there another kind?”

“Well, some people try to negotiate their arguments without the use of a gun .44 caliber cartridges or black powder? You know, meaningful dialogue?”

“Nothing wrong with my methods,” Casey told him. “And you moved away a minute ago. Want you closer.” 

Abruptly, one of his calves slid up Chuck’s back, halting for a second to tease his spine. It took the kid that long to become aware he was using his calf as a hook. Casey didn’t stop until Chuck sat directly beneath him again. Then a hand reached out to the back of his neck, pulling him forward into a kiss. 

The kid recognized it, the rough shut-up kiss. As if he could steal the questions by pushing his tongue in, or by using his teeth to leave a soft bite on his bottom lip that had Chuck groaning. 

Okay, the kid got the signal that he was ending the conversation.

It didn’t mean he had to obey it.

“Mm … wait. Wait.” Chuck stared at him, straightened, his lips tingling after being taken in a kiss as hard as that one. When he focused, his eyes went to Casey’s mouth. It was swollen and still wet with his saliva, and Chuck briefly wondered if he should just shut up and let Casey kiss him again. Not that he didn’t want to. But he was curious, and sometimes a man just has to know.

“God, kid.” Casey pulled back at the unwelcome interruption, rolled his eyes. “In the last week, I’ve learned that you have a lot of looks, and that one is my least favorite.”

Chuck raised his chin. “Why?” 

“Why?” Casey huffed in that why do I have to explain this shit way. “Because it’s all soft and beggin’, that’s why. Bugs the shit out of me.”

The look couldn’t have bothered him that much, since while he grumbled, his other leg curved around him, effectively boxing the kid in. “That’s not what I meant,” Chuck said, his other hand sliding over Casey’s calf, dragging water up and over. “What I meant was why … well, you know ….”

“You need a reminder of how badly I want this conversation to end?” Casey made the point by squeezing his wrist and inching it over a bit. 

The straining distraction a foot in front of his face was getting really hard to avoid. Really … hard. Especially as Casey steered his hand a little closer, until a knuckle brushed against his balls. 

“Okay, you’re going to make me say it,” Chuck said, forcing his eyes up. Then, up a little higher, straight into Casey’s grin. “Why would someone like you –” and Chuck waggled a hand in his direction, “need to … see someone like … that?”

“Goddess, I’m trying to translate what you’re getting at, and the closest I can come to is this: you want to know why I paid a man to suck my dick?”

Chuck flushed. “As I matter of fact – yes. That’s it. I mean … well, geez – look at you.”

“What about me?”

“You – seriously? You could walk into any saloon and snap your fingers,” the kid observed, eyes traveling over him for emphasis. “Why go to Madame Satine’s?”

As Casey’s foot skimmed down his chest, Chuck wasn’t sure of the other man’s thoughts, or why he looked at him like that. He couldn’t understand why the slow dragging strokes over his skin rolled to a halt. 

“Maybe I didn’t want the trouble that goes with it? Did you think of that, genius? Conversations and touching …. Getting to know each other’s feel-ings.” He tacked on a sound of indifference, and that, Chuck understood. What was confusing to the kid was the brush of a large thumb, sliding sideways over his knuckles while he spoke. 

“What else?” Chuck finally asked him.

“Maybe I didn’t want to get trapped in those bullshit moves … be stupid enough to chase a man…. I never wanted someone that close to me.”

“Really? You don’t?” Chuck found he had to clear his throat if he wanted to keep going, even while he watched for any clues in Casey’s blue eyes. 

“Hell no.”

“Then … one last why,” he said quietly, and let out a breath. “Why … me?”

Casey pressed his lips together. He said nothing for what seemed like a long time, long enough that Chuck had to fight the urge not to twist out from between his legs one more time. Sure, the kid had seen him clam up before when Chuck neared his precious boundary of personal secrets, but this time it could be interpreted as stepping over, dancing on the other side, and giving him a raspberry. 

“You know,” Chuck blurted quickly, “forget I said – because I didn’t want you to think –”

“Shut the hell up,” he said in a low tone that singed Chuck’s insides. Not leaving it to chance, he reached around the kid’s neck and took a handful of dark curls, tangled between his fingers. That hold? He wasn’t messing around. If the kiss a minute ago was a strong suggestion to end it there, this one shouted down his throat, a direct order. 

All that strength channeled into one goal, he forcefully pressed his mouth down on the kid’s, using the twined fingers in his hair to keep him there. His mouth was seized, his breath taken. It became more than a kiss, it was a show of force, demonstrating to Chuck that he was still in control. 

So shut the hell up about why me? 

While Chuck flailed, almost fighting – he wasn’t done, he wanted an answer! – all he could manage was a sound of willful protest against his lips. Maybe there was a tiny shove, arms and legs getting involved - 

Well, Casey wasn’t about to lay down arms over a little objection. It seemed to goad him. He took it to the back of his throat, and it earned Chuck a snarl into his mouth. “Said shut up,” he reinforced, just in case the kid had any thoughts of pushing it. 

It seemed to take forever for the kiss to gradually die out. Like the highpoint of a storm, dwindling to a weak stir in the air. Finally, without unwinding his fingers, he pulled Chuck’s head back and studied him like an odd specimen he had flushed out of the forest.

Chuck eyes widened. He tried not to wince at the hold. “John?”

“I was wrong. They’re nothing like his.” Casey spoke gruffly, holding him tighter. “You’ve got enough hurt in those brown eyes to break a man. And I don’t break.”

That made no sense. None of it. Still, Chuck easily picked up on the fact that right there was as much as he would get tonight. As he moved backwards, the kid looked away and closed his mouth just to show him he was done. 

That must’ve satisfied Casey. His hand on the back of his head loosened its grip, pushed a curl back from his forehead, rubbing his finger against the slope of his cheekbone. 

Now what? Considering the position, the view, and the cooling water, this could be more awkward, though it was farfetched to imagine how. 

The kid drew in a steadying breath, and it was natural, what he did next. It was the only thing to do. 

Shifting on his knees, he touched the man’s jaw, traced down over as much skin as he could. Then he lowered his head, resting one cheek along the firm plane of Casey’s thigh, gazing inward. Because of that, Casey’s erection stood mere inches from his lips, even closer to the spread of his hand on Casey’s upper leg. 

Another exhalation elicited a low growl of approval.

“What do you think you’re doing, kid?” Casey rumbled. Not a complaint. Just curious.

Chuck swallowed. “I’m not like him.”

This time it was gentle when he entwined his long fingers through his wet locks. Casey was quiet at first, but an easy stroking started in his hair, a thumb passing along his temple. “Kid, if there was ever a truer thought, I don’t know what it is.”

“That’s not exactly my point,” Chuck murmured, tilting his eyes up at Casey. Casey reached out and brushed his cheek with his thumb, his expression unsmiling, waiting. “I was trying to say … I wouldn’t do it like him.”

-x-End Wings of Grace Chapter Twenty-x-


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

“I hope you don’t think I’m going to let you leave that there,” he heard Casey say. 

Chuck shifted his cheek in order to look up. He smiled, putting the crooked one to some good use, since Casey seemed to notice it. “You mean … I can’t stay like this?” 

“Missing the point, brown eyes,” Casey muttered, and the kid felt the tickle of long fingers passing over his nape. “Not leaving without … explaining what you meant by that.” 

His lips were so close, his stubbly cheek resting on Casey’s thigh, his body completely naked. At the next pass of the larger man’s thumb at the back of his neck, he scooted up a little on knees, felt them bumping along the side of the cast iron tub. The water was cooling. 

He closed his eyes and let out a breath, curious if the warm trace of an exhalation against Casey’s long cock would get a reaction from the other man. 

“Yeah … that’s a start,” Casey said, his voice barely audible over the slap of rain on the roof. His hand in Chuck’s hair gave one tight squeeze, unwound a little. It meant even that felt good, right?

When his eyes drew open to slits, the kid’s vision was completely dominated by a rock-hard shaft, skin tight yet as soft as the flesh on his inner wrist. He knew that now. He had felt it in his hand last night, and at this second, it was so close to the end of his nose, Chuck could feel heat pouring off of Casey’s erection. Or maybe heat from his cheeks, seeing that he had never had his lips this close to a man’s stiff cock. 

While he shifted his attention to Casey’s face, Chuck inched closer, knowing full well he was teasing the man. Casey silently concurred, because he took the opportunity to nudge his head even further, using the grip in his hair to steer his nose within a hairsbreadth of his dick. Suck it, he seemed to say. 

“Casey?” 

“God help me,” Casey said, running a finger lightly along Chuck’s bottom lip, “whatever you do right now, don’t say whatever the hell you’re getting ready to say.”

“But you don’t even know what I’m -”

“Don’t need to.” Casey stroked his head, which Chuck thought was nice until it occurred to him Casey had pressed down to keep his head there. “I just know it’s going to be as annoying as all get out.”

“Fine,” Chuck said, wiggling his head against Casey’s still damp thigh, inhaling the scent of soap and him. “Just … just one thing, okay?” 

Casey huffed, a resigned look coming to his eyes. “You brought me in here so that you could talk me to death, is that it?”

“I was going to say,” and Chuck let the heel of his hand come close to his balls, “I like the view from here.” Maybe that was tame, but it was the dirtiest implication that had ever come from his mouth. 

Casey grunted, sounding pleased that Chuck dropped his inhibitions enough to tell him. “Not so bad from here, either, kid,” he said, playing with a few locks between his forefinger and thumb. 

Well, if he liked that …. “And I wanted to make sure you were watching when I did this.”

“What?”

Yeah, what? God, he should’ve planned the part of seducer a bit more clearly! 

On a whim, he picked up that pesky finger that had been rubbing his lips, and slid it between them, looped his tongue around the tip. Only the tip, giving Casey enough to sit there and think about for a minute.

It registered that Casey’s hands have been trouble for him since he woke up on the floor with a knot on his head, held down, blinking up into his hard face. But now, they’re strong and safe, and this bit of flesh was smooth against his tongue. 

Pushing the impulse, he stroked his tongue down and back up, sweet and restless over him. And then sucked it a little. 

“Jesus Christ … you like that, don’t you?” Casey asked, crooking his finger to swipe it in a suggestive way, just a time or two over his tongue. And he continued, his voice thick, “Didn’t peg you as a little fucking cock tease ….”

At that, the kid pulled back, and Casey’s finger popped free. “Hey, remember, I’m new at this. I’m not trying to be … that way. Can I help it if I … just want to watch you?”

Casey considered him, slowly tracing his finger along Chuck’s jaw. “I can still kill you, kid,” he said, but the smile was sexy, black. “Leave your body in that pasture behind the barn?”

Chuck angled his head just enough for Casey to see the bright smile. “But you won’t.”

“You’re right, I won’t,” Casey replied, letting his fingers trail to hollow of his throat. “Not when there are other things I can do.”

“Like what?” 

The uh-oh hit him between the ears a millisecond too late. 

“Yeah … you want to know, don’t you? ‘Cause I’ve been thinking ….” Casey’s other hand, up until that moment, had been playing nicely in his hair, but it tightened and steered his head up. Those strong fingers twisted in his curls, not hurting, but forceful – and for a reason he couldn’t think about right now, his cock jumped another inch at the feel of his hand there. 

“Bet you like that …?” Casey asked, steadying him. “You know what else you’d like?”

Oh, God. “I – I haven’t really –”

“Getting your mouth fucked.” He lowered his head to Chuck’s, his lips moving to his ear, his breath warm on the kid’s dank skin. Then he whispered, “Never got that, huh? That roommate of yours never breached those pretty virgin lips?”

“You broke a rule! No talking about you-know-who.”

“I never said his name,” Casey argued, giving Chuck’s head a tiny shake. “That was the rule.” 

“Are you going to … let go?” He wasn’t about to tell Casey that his body had coiled and clenched, a hungry reaction to being held, and that had to stop. Instincts weren’t supposed to be this confusing.

“After I say this: if you think you’re going to play with me like that, pancake, well ….” Casey slanted his head at him. “Hear that?” It was quiet for ten heart pounding seconds. “I like the way your breath picks up when I talk to you like this. Or when I do this.” Another scrunch in his hair to emphasize the point.

“I – that has nothing –”

“I think you like it. I can see it in those brown eyes.” Casey slid his hand down in between them, cupped him, finding the head unerringly, rubbing the ridge. “You’re gonna ask for more … want more …?”

“God ….” Chuck squeezed his eyes shut, diverted his thoughts to anything else. Not that deep rough voice. He couldn’t come like this, letting Casey take him through it in a desperate, over-too-quickly orgasm cut short by his own shame. As he felt the reflexive tightening, he thought of his aunt’s petticoat, that peek of pristine white and ruffles under draped lavender silk, visible as she sat on the parlor settee. Or playing kick the can with Aaron Cabot, which always somehow spiraled into kick the weird kid’s ass instead. 

That was safe. 

“Always lick your lips like that? When you’re nervous?” he heard over his head. “Or is it something else?” 

“Oh … no.” 

“Jesus,” Casey whispered, his toe tracing the curve of skin over the last of line of ribs before his flat stomach. “Try to get it wet, will ya, kid?”

Chuck took a deep breath. Anything to ignore the strong hand in his hair, and his own neglected dick … which he was not instinctively rubbing against Casey’s leg – no, no, no ….

“Like that, do you? The bastard chuckled and moved his leg. “Don’t come yet … want you to save that for later.” 

“Later?” Chuck opened his eyes to give him a dirty look. “Who’s playing now?”

Casey smiled, didn’t even try to deny it. “Why don’t you show me that trick with your tongue again,” he suggested. “Though … not with my finger this time.”

“I want my hair back first. Please,” Chuck hastened to add. Despite the tremor down his lean back, he wasn’t willing to give up that last scrap of control. Not yet. 

Casey loosened his fingers and went back to ruffling a few crazy tendrils at the side of his head. Finding his nape, he massaged with light fingers, all that strength harnessed into being gentle and firm. Well, nice. If he wanted the kid to relax his head along his muscular thigh again, it worked. Laying his cheek there, Chuck sunk into the touch of the firm strokes. Just kneading that area, until he was both more relaxed and aroused than he had been. 

“Mmm … good hands,” the kid mumbled. “You can do that anytime ….”

“Yeah?” He circled the nape with his thumb, rubbing, pressing, fingers easing into more of a rhythmic stroke than a clutch …. 

Chuck had closed his eyes, motionless, breath barely brushing over Casey. “John?” 

“Hmm?”

“Do … do you ever remember what it’s like to do something for the first time?”

“You serious?” Casey snorted with mirth. “You want to talk through this?”

“Come on. I only meant that if you’ve … done something a hundred times, you’re never going to appreciate it like the first time.” 

“So that’s what the hell you meant. A few minutes ago?” Sliding his arm down, Casey let his hand drift over to a nipple and pinched. 

“Ow. Stop that.”

“The whore,” Casey went on, subduing the protest by passing a thumb over the nub. “‘I wouldn’t do it like him’?”

The kid opened his eyes and tipped his head, needing to see Casey’s face. Merely for the reason it was not easy having a thoughtful dialogue with a stiff dick an inch from one’s nose. “I only mean, first times are different. The first time you laid eyes on an ocean? Or … a mountain?”

“Flattered, kid,” Casey interrupted. Without warning, those fingers slid back through his hair and tugged, used the hold to turn Chuck’s eyes upward. 

“Hey – what are you – ah, okay, okay!”

“My turn to say something.” Casey lowered his face to his. “Are you listening?” he said, blue eyes a hairsbreadth away.

“If I answer, w-will you let go?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Loosen?”

“Nope,” Casey said. “Here’s the thing, princess. When a man is in the position you are right now?” 

Chuck attempted to look down, though that was unnecessary. He was still on his knees with a dick in his face. “Um, yeah?” 

“That’s not the time to get philosophical. Ever, but especially now.” Casey shrugged. “It’s just a good blow job, that’s all.”

The kid raised a brow. “Good?”

Casey’s eyes drifted down to his mouth as he thought about it. “Well, there’s hope, I reckon.” He unfastened his hand gently though, those strong fingers carding into his hair one more time before pulling away. “Are you done talking about … first times?” 

“Promise.” Chuck said, running his hands over Casey’s upper thighs, hard as rock. It wasn’t on purpose, but with his lips this close, his breath picking up, the humid exhale brushed over Casey like a soft caress. “Is this … okay?”

The way Casey gave a slight thrust up confirmed that he had felt the ghosting breath. His hand that had been dangling along his outer thigh moved up, fingers digging deeply into the edge of the chair. For a man who gave away nothing, no emotion whatsoever, the strength in his fingers told the kid all he needed to know. Maybe he hadn’t screwed this up completely yet. 

“Could be better,” Casey answered. “We both know I’m not sittin’ here because the chair is so damn comfortable.”

“It’s not?”

He felt Casey’s eyes cover his chest. “Not yet, anyway.”

The kid was hyperaware of something causing this stupidity of his, this demureness. Or someone. Great gift, Bryce. Sex was always going to make him shrink back? Make him think about the first time – when he was – no, he couldn’t torture himself with that word.

This was Casey. He could be an ornery, impatient bastard, but Chuck knew that was one line he wouldn’t cross. Forcing him when he wasn’t ready was a demarcation between a thief – that’s what he was, the kid figured – and a person like … Bryce. And Chuck knew damn well what Bryce was.

A thumb scraped over the stubble of his cheek, making a satisfying scruffing noise. It also made him look up. “Pancake?” Casey said, nudging him with a foot. “If there was ever a time not to get tangled in your thoughts, now would be it.”

As Casey leaned down and brushed his lips, every part of him was able to let go of that thought. Chuck wanted to be right here. He was a fool for thinking of that jackass when he had a man who could make him forget his hurt right here in front of him. 

Sitting back on his heels, the kid took the hand that was at the chair’s edge, warm, still wet, and held on. “Okay, let’s try this. Remember what you said before?” 

“What are you getting at now?” 

“Getting … what I want.” Chuck looked down at his hands splayed over Casey’s thighs. Time to be brave. After a long pause, he lowered his head, dragged his tongue, damp and firm, over the flesh there. “This is about you and me, isn’t it?” Not Bryce. Not the prostitute who happened to have a striking resemblance to him. 

“What do you want do, kid?” 

How does he do that with his voice? As it dipped to a gravelly register, the sound reverberated through the kid. It seemed everything inside of Chuck was going to spill. He couldn’t even help it when his groin responded, like he was being pulled in by a string. Barely knowing it, Chuck felt his hips thrust forward until his dick rubbed the side of the tub. God, who in the world had the idea of doing this in a stupid bathtub? 

Glancing up, his eyes went straight to Casey’s knowing little smirk. “You did it again. Mine, remember. Save it.”

Chuck wet his lips, grappling for balance. Luckily, he could take hold of the sturdiest thing in the room. He spread his fingers out wide, digging into the flesh, one on each thigh. “What I wanted to – mmp. Mmph?”

“Kid, don’t tell me.” The two large fingers sealed over the kid’s lips stayed put. Casey ran a hand around the back of Chuck’s neck, gave it a squeeze, You dumb little shit it said. He waited, ensuring silence, before he dropped his other hand from Chuck’s lips. “Wanna see it.”

“First, one more thing,” Chuck said, and he shifted on his knees. “Give me your hands.”

Casey watched him through narrowed eyes for a moment, debating what to do next. Finally, he held out his huge palms in front of Chuck’s face, and the kid would’ve bet his farm that was the first time Casey had willingly given up his hands to anyone. “Do you even know what to do with those?” 

“Here.” Chuck hesitated only briefly before circling those wide wrists with his fingers. When he had a grasp, he lowered them to the edge of the chair, on either side of Casey’s hips. “Keep them there.”

Casey stole a glance at him, then down at his hands. “You’re being a little bossy again, kid,” he said, but Chuck heard something that he pegged as more than mild interest. He had his rapt attention. 

“Hey, I asked nicely, didn’t I?” Chuck asked, and now that he had Casey’s compliance, he leaned down to kiss his thigh.

Casey stretched a leg in the water, and without even balking, he let the kid hold his wrists down. “If that’s what you want.” he replied, palms up, fingers curled. 

Might as well say what he’s thinking. “Either you’re not concerned about me overpowering you, or you like this.”

Casey snorted, calmly appraising him. The audacity didn’t seem to take him off his game, however. “Did you think that maybe it’s both?” He flexed his wrists under Chuck’s hands. It was light movement, but the threat was explicit; he would get out of this if he had the desire to do so. “Now what, hot stuff?”

Chuck sat back on his heels and at the worst time, licked his lips. Shit. There went his chance of being cool about this. “I’m going to take your advice from last night,” he said, hoping it sounded confident. 

“What? You can actually listen?” Casey smiled, and the kid didn’t even mind that he was being goaded by that crazy flirting of his. “Since when can you follow simple directions?”

As an answer, Chuck squeezed down on his wrists. He was certain Casey knew it was a reminder that he was the one who had the control. Yes, it was thin, just the fragile veneer of control – hell, it would blow away in a good sneeze - but the kid was determined to take it – 

For as long as Casey would go along with this.

Heaving in a long breath, the kid let it out, sending warm breath ghosting over soaked skin. To be honest, he wanted to remind Casey how close his mouth was to his cock. “Do you remember?” the kid asked softly. “You said I should just do what I want.”

“I don’t remember all the talking last night,” Casey replied, now stretching out with the other leg, wet flesh skimming along Chuck’s middle. “But that might be vaguely familiar.”

“Glad you were paying attention,” Chuck said deliberately straight-faced. He cleared his throat to choke down his nerves, since this could go very badly. “What I want is for you to sit there, shut up, and let me handle this part.” He tipped his head up and replayed that. “Uh, please?”

He hoped Casey took that in the right way. Not a challenge. Just … if he was going to have to wait five years, ten years, to be with a man again, Chuck needed to remember the goose bumps and warm skin, the way his body felt pressed between two strong thighs. Not hurried by animal-like urges.

Casey watched him, breathing steady … those hands, still caught under his, flexed. As if he was testing him. 

“Well?” Chuck asked.

After a minute, Casey settled back, drew a leg up the kid’s ribcage, dripping water over him. He was obviously amused, but his arms went slack at his sides. “Christ, brown eyes,” he muttered, “you are the one man who can do this where I know I won’t get a knife between the ribs.”

“Uh, somewhere between the images of horror, was that a compliment?” Chuck replied, lifting his brows in surprise.

“Yes,” Casey said simply, the tension in his wrists subsiding. 

“Wait. I left that wide open. No sarcasm?”

Casey wasn’t smiling at his joke. When Chuck raised his gaze, he knew Casey had been staring at him, probably watching his hands, his mouth, contemplating each feature. 

“Okay, now you have me here,” he said, and his lips twitched. “What do you want to do first?”

Oh, so many things. Or actually, just one. 

First he had to let go of Casey’s hands in order to free his own, so he started there. “If it feels like a knife, I’m probably doing this all wrong.” Chuck paused, waiting for a low laugh. 

When it didn’t come, he looked up into steady blue eyes, gleaming with impatience. 

“I see …. That would be a no to humor,” the kid went on in an afterthought. With his hands now empty, the kid slid his fingers upward over Casey’s thighs, feeling a few trails of bath water still trickling under his palms.

Hell, he had made it this far. The time for indecision was behind him. 

He never thought that the idea of sucking him would make his mouth water, his own body shivering and hot at the same time at the anticipation of putting his lips on him, touching Casey there. 

“I want ….” Chuck swallowed because he couldn’t decipher the roughness in his own voice. “To see what it’s like. I mean, really taste you.”

He couldn’t look up. His cheeks blazed. Did he really voice that?

Despite his embarrassment, Casey let him know he didn’t mind the forwardness. “So far I’m not complainin’,” he said.

He expected it; for Chuck to put his mouth on him. Well, it wouldn’t be half as much fun if he did exactly as Casey expected. 

Bravely, the kid took a finger, using just the pad, and swirled the bead of moisture around the tip. Slippery, thicker than a drop of water, he noticed, remembering the feel from last night, and he had to wonder if the taste would be bitter against his tongue.

There was only way to find out … and he wanted to do it. He waited this long, didn’t he? So Chuck pressed his palm into Casey’s hard tendons along his thighs, shifted his gaze upward - yep, he had his keen interest – and popped his slicked-up finger into his mouth. 

It wasn’t unpleasant, the tiny burst of salt and spiciness. Bolstered, the kid looked up at him and looped his tongue around his finger, making a good show while he breathed in heavily through his nose. 

Casey watched him intently, like he had paid for the price of admission, and goddammit, it was about time the show started. 

Forget the fact that Chuck didn’t mind it at all. Maybe even liked it, particularly for the instinctual reaction he felt in Casey’s muscles. Hearing his breathing pick up because he wanted more than his finger there.

“Guess I was right. You are a cock tease after all.” But with the way Casey’s eyes got dark, Chuck decided he derived some pleasure from it. “Do that again,” he said coolly. I dare ya. 

As Chuck reached out wordlessly to fulfill the request, he wondered if his actions surprised Casey at all. Because if he thought the order would rankle, he was wrong about that too. Chuck was all about this. And why not? He had Casey somewhat under control, willing to let him take it slow, and consequently had no issue with following his … strong proposal. 

So of course, he did. This time, there wasn’t as much fluid to smear, but Chuck moved the pad of his finger around the tip, looping to the rim. “Kind of like that, huh?” he asked, not looking up. Just watching his hand, finger spiraling. “I … I like the way you taste.” 

Chuck cleared his throat, because holy hell, when did a nice boy like him say things like that? Now that he was certain he could feel the burn of Casey’s eyes on him, the kid then swiped his index finger in the precome, swirled, and put his finger in his mouth. 

At that, Casey raised a brow, and a large hand latched onto his wrist. He pulled until Chuck had to drop his hand. 

“When I said do it again,” Casey remarked, blue eyes focused on his face, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, I know I’m a little naïve, but -” Chuck started.

“Pfft. A little?”

The kid made a face. It didn’t stop him from taking hold of Casey’s cock, fingers wrapping around him, the grip making Casey sit up a little. “This … this might be what you meant.” 

He started at the stiff circumference of the crown, used his finger to trace over the length of him, down nearly to the balls before sliding back up. The kid found himself concentrating on the feel of him; the potent combination of ridges, veins, and tight skin. Looking up, he could see the firelight from the stove dancing over Casey’s angular profile. There was no reason to wait. It was warm … nothing scary, right? 

“You want to, don’t you?” Casey’s voice, catching.

And seeing that Casey’s eyes were focused on his face, Chuck answered by dipping his head and touched his lips to him. The skin was soft there, softer than the other places he had licked him or touched his lips to thus far. It was odd, though, how flesh could be velvety, yet hard and tight at the same time. Going further, the kid molded his mouth around the broad crown, only that for now, and swished his tongue along the hard ridge, not sucking. Not yet. Just licks, figuring it out as he went.

“Jesus Fucking Bloody Christ,” he head Casey whisper over the patter of rain.

Though there had been a fair amount of curses lobbed at him over the past week, the kid decided that one fell on the more favorable side of the fence. This was good, then? 

Taking his time, growing more accustomed to the smooth skin against his tongue, Chuck repeated the swishing movement, looping the crown, the curved surface silky against his lips. His eyes were open, and he should be embarrassed by that, but cutting off one of his senses for this seemed foolish. God, not now. Not with his tongue doing things that could work that noise from him. He kept his thoughts riveted just there, the simplest kind of concentration, giving him a circular tongue motion on the head …. 

Casey let out his breath, one that ended with his toes curling. Chuck saw one of his hands slowly dig into the seat of the chair. He didn’t move it, however, and if he thought it was a game Chuck was playing, well, for now, he went along with it.

Instead of backing off, the kid took a long moment to explore that little ridge with the tip of his tongue, remembering what it felt like when Casey did this a day ago. But hell, being a man, he knew firsthand that touching the tiny indentation at the base of the head felt damn good. Even better with a wet tongue and lips, pulsing back and forth over it, dipping into the notch of flesh. 

So he did it, right there. Repeated it with a swirl and lick.

Huh. That might’ve been Casey’s head falling back. 

The kid pulled up to breathe, slipped his mouth over the head again, observing the way Casey’s cock strained towards the heat, noticing the skin felt looser just under the head. Exploring Devil’s Canyon had nothing on this, not with the way Casey jerked when his tongue curled around the edge, teasing it ….

“Mmmgn. God, kid ….” Casey shifted his hips. Long fingers dangled at his sides. “Either you’re naturally good at this, or you’re a quick study.” 

Chuck’s head popped up, his answer spilling at the same time Casey’s cock fell out of his mouth. “I … I prefer to think it’s both,” he said.

Casey frowned. “And I prefer that you go back to what you were doing … oh, fu - mmh.” 

Well. Not that Casey was a big talker, but that shut him up. 

Closing his eyes, he let his tongue slip around the crown, savoring, going back to the same movement that wrestled a little moan out of him a second ago … and he couldn’t help but feel … sort of powerful. Unfamiliar as it was, but yes, he did. There was giddiness at hearing those dirty growls from his chest, and knowing he was the reason for it. 

As he repeated it, giving him the twirling motion that Casey seemed to like, the kid cracked an eye open. Casey’s fingers, curled around the edge of the chair, tightened at every loop his tongue made. A total betrayal that made Chuck so hard he wondered if a man could come by giving head in a lukewarm bathtub. Crap. With his luck, he would be the first.

“You should … take more,” Casey said. His voice held some humor as he added, “Don’t be skittish. He … hasn’t bitten anyone in a while.”

Big jerk. Chuck would be insulted, except his learning curve had Casey’s long legs taut around Chuck’s middle, intent on holding him there. 

Seriously. Did he think he’d slither out of here? 

“Neither have I,” Chuck said, lips tasting the slight hint of saltiness, slipperiness, as they grazed over the very tip. His thumb rubbed there, pressed against the underside of his cock, his own nerves flaring from his brain to his dick that he was actually doing this. 

“Oh God …shit ….” When Casey arched up with a groan, his thigh muscles straining, the kid pulled back to brush his lips over him, slow and deliberate and knowing Casey was watching the very place his lips connected with him. 

He looked up to gauge the reaction. “Is that chair still hurting your tush?” Chuck asked, smiling innocently.

Casey chuckled. “Heh. Just keep going, tough guy,” he told him.

“This was my idea, remember? I have to take care of you, don’t I?” Before Casey could reply, Chuck opened his mouth a bit further, sliding down past the crown and letting a few hard inches breach his lips. Oh, hell. More skin, hot and hard, way better than he imagined. Yes, he had imagined it, but a blurry romp in the mind couldn’t live up to the way Casey’s cock swelled and jumped against his tongue. 

“Yeah. Better,” Casey said, lips parting, chest expanding. “Like that ….”

Up until now, the kid had only tested him an inch or two, keeping his focus on the sensitive crown. But … he speculated about the rest of his cock, what that would feel like under his tongue?

With Casey willing to sit there in the chair while he found out, the kid moved his mouth to one side, molding it around the curve of his cock. Taking him straight down wouldn’t let him get far before his gag reflex kicked in, but cupping him from the side allowed Chuck to roll his tongue from the crown to the root. More swishing, more movement, back up again ….

Well, for once, his body cooperated, because saliva automatically filled his mouth, watering at the firm flesh formed against his lips. Up, back down. Just this, for now. Concentrating, he slid through his own saliva, twirled his tongue around the crown, and moved his mouth to the other side. 

God. Casey’s smooth and hard everywhere; the skin is exactly like kissing him or licking him in the many places he had already, except for the response. Quiet moans, legs tensing around him …. That part was wildly better.

For some reason, he really wanted to see Casey’s face when he did this. He would give almost anything for an expression that finally disclosed an emotion. That what he was doing felt good, gave him hunger. That Casey needed it. 

When the kid dared to look up, past his stomach and chest, it took a heartbeat for Casey to come into focus. Their eyes met, and while Casey watched him, he went down slowly along one side of the curve, lips molded, inhaling deeply through his nose. He remembered to swish when he got to the root – and then what the hell, why not? - fondled his balls with one hand, feeling them shift convulsively under the caress of his thumb. That had to feel good, right?

“Oh, hell,” Casey said hoarsely, confirming the previous thought. “Buachaill maith.”

Now would not be the time to ask what that meant.

An instant later, he didn’t need it, not when Casey bit down on his lower lip at that touch. Everything about him lax and compliant, reclined and stretched out, his arms lying at his sides … and for a man who never backed down, it was the picture of complete capitulation. Utter willingness to let Chuck do anything, as long as he wanted to keep exploring with his mouth and tongue. 

Okay. He could do that. 

So he rolled his balls around in his palm and came down along the side of the curve again. Getting a taste, curling his tongue over the surface - 

The deadly rumble almost sent him back on his butt. Immediately, Chuck’s head popped up one more time. “Uh, was that okay? You made that sound – and I’m never quite sure what it means. Really. There should be a dictionary or something to cover -”

“Kid.” Casey’s glazed look from a moment ago was replaced by one slightly more perturbed. 

“You can tell me if I’m doing it all wrong –”

“My God. Shut up.” As Casey spoke, he brought up a few fingers to brush over his bottom lip. Gently, but the message had been relayed. “The only thing wrong is that you stopped doing it. Eh, pancake?”

“Subtle,” Chuck deadpanned at first before he flashed a smile. It gave him a boost to his confidence – but there were other ways to thank Casey for that. 

Lowering his head, he licked along his shaft, and looked up. So far, so good. Braver, he began working the shaft, lips cupped around him along one side, then the other, trying not to think of finesse or technique. Just doing what he wanted, tasting him, licking him in a trail from the base to the tip. 

“Yeah, you’re good at that. Getting it wet for me,” Casey murmured. “You should … mmmng - see how much you can take ….” 

It took the kid a second or two to figure that out, that he wanted him to come down on him straight. Well, there was only one way to do that. 

Acting on instinct – maybe with the urge to please him - Chuck shifted on his knees and wrapped one hand around the hard girth. Now that he had him in a loose grip, out of curiosity, Chuck had to flick his thumb over the taut vein beneath, and looked up to see Casey close his eyes. 

Yep, same reaction as last night when he caressed him like that. Cataloguing that touch to use later, the kid then opened his mouth and drew him in, slow, savoring the feel of having his cock like this for the first time. Being all around him. 

Okay, truthfully, he was being cautious to start, not really knowing how far he could go. Consciousness fragmenting into only this sensation, he sunk straight down until there was a tickle in his throat, and pulled back up. God, it felt good. Who knew being the giver would give so much pleasure? 

Taking a little more, sliding down a little further, Chuck let his mouth drag along the tight flesh, darting his tongue over him, keeping his teeth out of the way. Which was no easy feat, much like trying to cover most of him with his mouth. Hell, that was impossible.

The thing that was easy was getting lost in it. Forgetting everything but the long muscular body in front in of him, not his knees beginning to shift past the cloth that was saving them from the cast iron, or being overwhelmed by the newness of taking a man between his lips. It was the dizzying excitement that had the room revolving, knowing his only task in this very moment was to please him - and crazily, by doing it, he made his own cock hard enough to cut etchings into glass.

“God, kid. That’s it.” Casey breathed out his appreciation on a rasp of air. “Yeah. Knew you’d like it … sucking me off ….”

Okay. If he thought about it too much, he’d die right here of embarrassment at that. He just learned one more thing about John Casey. He says things that can be annoying while getting sucked, but then again, it is one of those times where a man gets a little latitude, Chuck supposed. 

He let go of those thoughts, and went down again. Pulling back up, he got into the rhythm with a slow drag over veined, tight skin, remembering to keep him wet. A moist slide back down, drawing up …. 

Though Chuck gave his total focus to Casey’s erection – there was nothing else - he became aware that Casey had splayed a hand on his hunched shoulder.

“Got it now, kid?” Casey asked, and holy God, the fingers pressed down. “You should … use your hand, too.”

Was he doing something wrong? No, that possibility was eliminated when Casey’s head fell back, closing his eyes at a markedly brave trip down, an inch more than Chuck had taken the last time. 

Use his hand. As his brain stumbled along, Chuck brought up a wet palm and took hold of him where his mouth had no hope of covering. It was natural, just to get into the same rhythm; up, down again … the width of his fist taking over where he couldn’t. 

“Good … love that mouth.” A big hand passed over his hair. “Yeah, don’t stop.”

God, his mouth automatically watered again, letting his palm slide over the lower half of his glistening cock. His knees were quivering, why, he had no idea. Chuck opened and took him deeper, feeling fierce lust and the heat of elation at Casey’s surrender to this. In a way, for once, to him.

“That’s it …. Jesus, fuck ….” Better than music to his ears. With another burst of confidence, the kid sucked a bit harder, hollowing his cheeks on the way up, sliding down –

Oh, no. The tickle in the back of his throat became a harsh poke, way too hard for the sensitive soft palate. For the briefest pause, the kid tried to fight through it, but there was no way. Chuck’s head snapped up as he coughed and sputtered, covering his mouth to hide the mortification of getting too ambitious. 

“Oh God,” he managed between coughs. “Not – not fair.”

“Just slow down … take a long breath, kid,” he told him, the corner of his mouth curling up faintly. “I do appreciate the enthusiasm behind it.” He winked and tousled the hair at the back of his neck. “You’re a good student.”

Chuck couldn’t say anything until the coughing subsided, but at last, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Wow. Thanks,” he grumbled. “Is there any chance we can forget this happened?”

Casey studied him, laid his hand on Chuck’s cheek, thumb caressing the side of his nose. “Not forgetting anything about you, brown eyes,” he finally said under his breath. Chuck didn’t mean it that way, but in Casey’s mind, forgetting wasn’t about the kid’s clumsy choke. 

It was about tonight. This week. And in the one blink, the look was gone, replaced by the cool blue shield. 

“You … just need a little more practice, that’s all,” Casey went on more easily, his hand drifting up to thread through his dark curls. “Or a lot more. And I guess I could suffer through it.”

Humiliation, still hot in his throat as a spark of burnt orange, gave way to a soothing stroke in his hair. “How thoughtful,” Chuck replied, but smiled shyly at him. “Are you volunteering?” 

Casey grunted, one that Chuck took as affirmative. More like hell yes. “You know what they say, don’t you?”

“Who are they?”

Casey rolled his eyes and gave the handful of hair a little squeeze. “They say when you fall off the horse, you’ve got to get back on.”

“Again, points for subtlety,” Chuck griped. As he lowered his eyes, dark lashes sweeping down, his smile faded to seriousness. “It’s … good advice, though.” 

Casey captured his long fingers, resting on his thigh. This made Chuck tip his head up with a questioning look, wondering why his hand was taken. “I’ll show you,” Casey said.

“Oh.” Chuck’s gaze swooped up to Casey’s mouth, and quickly darted back down to the long dick a few inches from his lips. He blinked and swallowed hard, his brain doing cartwheels. “Show?”

Casey peered down at him and sent an arch look. “I don’t even want to know what you’re thinking, cupcake,” he said, “but whatever it is, I’m sure you’re way off.”

“Thank God.” Chuck let out a breath of relief. “Because it’s … what I’m thinking? Well, I don’t even think it’s physically possible to do.”

Casey shook his head and laughed softly. “I meant, I would show you – like this.” At this, the hand in his hair tightened, his fingers entwined in the curls. It was a sure restraint, hard enough to take control, but not hard enough to cause pain. 

Still, he had to. “Oh – ow.”

Casey cocked his head. “Ow? Brown eyes, look at me.”

The inexplicable compulsion to obey, to trust, had Chuck sagging back, tilting his head up. “Yes?”

“Does that hurt?”

Chuck’s hands smoothed over the muscles of Casey’s thighs as he considered it. “No,” he admitted, cheeks heating up. “That was more of an ow of surprise rather than hurt, I guess.” 

“Eh, who needs the dictionary now?” Casey asked, the hold becoming a slow kneading. He brought his face down a little closer to meet his eyes. “You’re going to let me steer.” 

“St-steer?” 

“Just going to help you,” Casey said, which Chuck didn’t take as any sort of an explanation. “And I can promise you’ll like it … if you’ll let me.” 

The kid was loathe to confess that he didn’t get it, but the assurance he would be okay … safe, was enough for him to give in. “Why don’t you … show me, then?” He stopped to wet his lips at the tentativeness he heard in his own voice. “What do you want?”

“Chuck ….” Gripping the back of his head, Casey steered his head down. “Take this. Start slow,” he said with some authority. “Easy ….” 

Any confusion around the concept cleared up as quickly as the first nudge downward. There was no fighting it – not that he wanted to – and the kid unwittingly parted his lips at the firm prod against them. 

“You catch on fast, princess …” Casey said. “C’mon ….” With his other hand, he circled his cock, brushed the crown back and forth over the kid’s lips. Teasing him. Open up.

His come already leaking from him, Chuck tasted it on his lips, even as Casey guided his head down, the forceful hand tightening in his wet locks. “Yeah, I’ll show you how far ….”

“Mmph.” Choices were nil at his point. He did the only thing he could, and it was the only thing he wanted to do. Chuck opened his mouth further and let the achy inches slide through his lips. When he took him, Casey nudged again using his grip, bringing him down to just the right place. Back up again. Then lower, making his head bob, letting the kid forget everything but the strong hand in his hair, hard cock slipping in and almost out. Never that far. Never letting him let go completely. 

“Jesus … love fucking your mouth …,” Casey said, sounding gruff. Somehow, by leaning back and lifting his hips, he managed to thrust up into his mouth a bit more. Careful, he was still being careful. 

Oh, fuck was all Chuck could think at the feel of that push, the clench of his thigh muscles, the rough response to being taken like this …. 

He kept his head down, eyes closed, letting Casey hold him, thrust up. He only had to think of keeping his throat relaxed, tongue moving, and touching everything he could. He ran his hand over his legs, up to his hip bone, fingers digging in, stamping in his mind what this felt like, to draw up the memory sometime … maybe he would need it tomorrow.

Mercifully, Casey seemed to know that the thrust would mean his hand couldn’t nudge him downward quite as far, because the choke the kid anticipated at a particularly enthusiastic prod never happened. 

“Never knew what that mouth was for, did ya, kid,” he heard Casey breathe over his head. It was followed by a gasp that made Chuck’s belly clinch. “Thata boy ….” His voice lowered, rough, becoming more unsteady on the next words, “Did you know … you were gonna like cock?”

That should’ve pissed him off a little. Maybe a lot. And it would’ve … except for the fact that, God, it was amazing how good it was. Sucking was one thing, but when it worked perfectly obscene sounds of gratification out of him, making Casey lift up to meet his mouth, it made the kid’s gut burn like lit gunpowder. Just by doing this, only with the velvety skin and steel of Casey’s cock in his mouth, hips rocking up, a big hand nudging him down – 

“No matter what happens … where you need to go ….” It was his imagination, hearing the strange half-said sentence that trailed off for a minute. But as Casey’s hand moved, still cupping his head, the kid caught the rest that came from a dream, nearly drowned out over the drumming of raindrops, the humbling sound of his mouth on Casey’s flesh. 

“Always gonna feel like you’re mine.”

The words were gone, like the fragile snap of a twig. 

That was last thought before Casey’s dick surged up to his mouth, and he heard a low curse. In response, Chuck groaned around him. He had no control over that. 

“God, kid. That little noise … feels so good when you do that.”

Well, that kind of reinforcement was all he needed. The kid repeated the groan on the next slide down, knowing that it sent a blissful vibration along his shaft. 

“Fuck … that’s what you wanted,” Casey said, his breath hitching as Chuck flicked the sensitive underside with his tongue. “Yeah … keep doing that.”

In retrospect, Chuck figured he probably should’ve stopped congratulating himself on being a star pupil, and picked up on the signs. Screamingly obviously ones. Such as Casey’s thighs flexing like bands of rope under his grip, trembling, or the way the fingers in his hair twisted around a handful of curls (now that was damn close to the real ow!) and they held on … more deeply in response to the suction and heat, tangling in his thick hair. 

When he sunk down on him that time, Casey held him there, halting at the very point his gag reflex would kick in, and didn’t let the kid pull up again. 

Dimly, from a long ways away, his brain fed him one word: Oh. 

Since flailing like an idiot would kind of ruin the mood, Chuck simply did what he could. He braced himself, fingers digging into Casey’s upper legs, and squeezed his eyes shut. 

“Chuck … little bastard …” Casey said deep in his chest. “Shit ….” Most of the remainder of the cursing was lost in a guttural moan. He did pick up that his good name was slandered a few more ways - in both English in Gaelic. How versatile.

“Mmngph?!” 

Casey’s other hand closed over his wrist. Stay.

All right. Point. Now was not the time to protest, not with Casey’s hand locked in his hair, and knowing that his own cock was ready to spurt like a twelve-year-old’s. This was all he needed, anyway. Nothing pretty about it. That didn’t stop it from being wholly perfect.

With his brain now floating like a bead in molasses, he felt the first thick salty tang of him on the back of his tongue, and that’s what it took for him to remember to close off his throat. He wasn’t ashamed to admit it, that he wasn’t quite ready for that. 

“Yeah … good boy … like that.” Casey let out a low groan, giving him all of it, the thrusts becoming slow and easy to the end. As he held him there, the kid stayed still and accepted all of him. If he was honest, taking it in the mouth wasn’t terrible, just a surprise, that’s all. 

Casey seemed to take a long time, though the kid had barely a damn thing to compare this to. His own self. Bryce. He didn’t remember much about Bryce that night, but he was sure he came – and why was he thinking of that asshole? Now?

Son of a bitch, not when the most handsome man he had locked eyes on had burst into his life. And … just spurted in his mouth. 

Pushing those thoughts out of his mind, he let himself just take it. He felt Casey’s hand constrict, holding his head steady while the only object of focus was the spunk on his tongue, filling a cheek. 

Holy … what the hell did Casey expect him to do with that? 

Okay, there was a chance his face gave it away. Figuring the beet red pallor meant he needed some help, Casey’s palm slid down to the kid’s shoulder, and he gave a little push. Enough to make Chuck have to let his cock slip out, along with some drool and other stuff he didn’t want to think about. 

“You okay?” Casey asked, a deep breath leaving him.

Chuck waved a hand, trying to appear calm. “Um. Um-hmm.” 

“Really.” Casey chuckled, one finger tracing his cheek. “Don’t worry, boyo. You might have to work up to that. More practice, eh?” At Chuck’s grimace, he grinned, and his other hand came into view in front of the kid’s eyes. Notably with the towel dangling from his fingertips. “You can use this.”

The kid gave him a look and lunged at it. Hiding his face, he got rid of his mouthful and wadded up that corner of the towel, tossing it to the side. 

“Isn’t there a secret hand signal or something?” Chuck put on a scowl, but it more to do with his aching hard on than anything else. “Isn’t there a way you could’ve warned me?!”

“Yeah?” Casey rumbled, bumped him playfully with his thigh. “If you needed a warning, you’re more naïve than I thought - and that would be damn near impossible, boyo, considering where you started.” 

Chuck wrinkled his nose, but he couldn’t get mad at him. Not when he smiled liked that, the lazy one that filled his eyes, casting them in a perfect shade of sea blue. He was the one who was impossible.

The kid couldn’t explain why Casey gave him a sense of grounding, awkwardness melting away, but he did. He communicated his own surrender by staying on his knees and putting his cheek on Casey’s thigh. Filled with satisfaction and emotions that were too strong, he spoke to him by rubbing his knuckles lazily up and down one of his calves. Above him, stoking his hair, Casey heaved a breath. It was good like this; Casey must’ve thought so too, because he remained still as well.

Time lolled, fuzzy and warm, but when the kid turned his hazel eyes up, he saw Casey’s chest was slick with sweat, hair damp, springy curls he wanted to run under his hands, or … lick or something …. 

He shivered, and closed his eyes. He was still aroused, but he needed to stay like this for a while. Just for now. 

As Casey’s hand moved around him, down his side, Chuck felt him tense along his legs. “Holy shit,” Casey said. “Weren’t you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Chuck asked, opening his eyes to tilt up at him. 

“The water. It’s freezing. Damn.” A muscle flexed in Casey’s jaw. “No wonder you’re shivering.”

“I’m … not. It’s fine, really, can we just –” There was a pause as the kid was cut off by another quiver. Okay, it finally struck him that the bathwater had cooled considerably, but that alone wasn’t reason enough to move. “Another minute? I’d like to… stay like this.”

"Up,” Casey demanded, already rising to his feet. “You’re clean enough. Stay in there any longer, and it’ll be like, well, fucking a raisin.”

“What?” The kid stared at him with a gob-stopped expression. 

“Let’s go,” Casey answered, grabbing the closest limb.

“Hang on, I can – easy – arms! I need them later!”

“Yeah, so do I.” Casey’s gaze shot down to his biceps, goose bumps rippling over his flesh. “I said up. Let’s go, goddess. Lift a foot.” The larger man tapped his leg to get him to move. When Chuck obeyed by climbing out, Casey stood him over a rug. “Stay.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” Chuck replied, folding his arms self-consciously over his chest. Water dripped everywhere while he watched Casey, naked and not caring, walk over to the pot belly stove, leaving him standing next to the tub. “If I’m boring you, I can –”

“Stand still.” Casey had picked up a towel draped on the back of a chair, and returned to where the kid stood in a puddle. He looked him over and raised a brow. “This is easier if your arms are down.”

“Give me the towel. I can do it.”

“So can I.” Reaching up, Casey brushed a thumb over his temple before he unglued a few curls from the kid’s forehead. Tender, but his look was pure determination. “Put your hands down.”

Chuck wavered only fleetingly before lowering his arms to his sides. He felt his fists clench, more out of embarrassment at his erection still so obviously there and on display. Casey, however, ignored that for now, and began methodically drying the water streaming over his bare skin. 

The kid swallowed against the touch as the towel rubbed down his spine, across his shoulder blades. When it trailed down to his ass, Casey squeezed a cheek firmly, making Chuck jolt. “Hey. Easy back there,” he grumbled. “I may need that for later, too.”

“Oh, kid, you have no idea,” Casey agreed softly. With a brisk touch, the towel came around the front to do the same to the kid’s flat stomach and chest. Casey then brought it up to his shoulders, neck, and at last his hair. He scrubbed gently to dry his dark mop, and before he pulled away, he swiped at the trickles that ran down the kid’s cheek. 

How could he be so gentle? Chuck puzzled to himself. Gentle, yet it was odd… the way he touched him was as if he owned him. Not just for now, this second. For good.

Chuck shook his head. “I … I think that’s enough,” he insisted. Now that they were eye to eye, the kid became aware that there were gazing at each other in the dim light, but not moving. “Is something wrong?” 

“Nothing.” Casey looked down and closed one hand over a fist Chuck still had at his side. And cupping his face for a light brush of lips, he gave him just a nip of a warm kiss. “You’re still shivering,” he said.

“You may not have noticed this,” Chuck answered, sarcasm creeping into his tone, “but in this precise situation, shivering is my last concern.” His directness put a little smirk on Casey’s face. “Is this a form of torture you decided to spring on me – hey. What are you doing? Hey!”

“If you keep squirming, princess, I’m gonna drop you.” 

“Dr-drop? John, put me down!” 

God, he never listened. Abruptly, Casey had clamped his big hands on the kid’s ass cheeks and had lifted him, holding Chuck against his chest. “Wrap your legs around me,” Casey whispered, lips close to his ear, his breath sending a tingle to his belly. “Do it. Won’t drop you.”

It was more than a suggestion. Being held like this, there was really no other choice, not with the pressure of Casey’s palms, his back flexing under his touch. Embarrassed, stimulated, the kid wrapped his thighs over Casey’s hips, locking his ankles behind him. It put him several inches above the slightly taller man, which meant he had to tip his head slightly to let him know how he felt.

“You’re insane, you know that, right?”

Casey gave his ass a squeeze and headed for the door. 

Oh, that dreamy movement. The rubbing against his penis. Perhaps this wasn’t such a terrible plan that Casey had.

The kid closed his eyes and jut his hips forward, brushing his cock against Casey’s lower stomach. “God …,” he murmured. “Feels good.”

“Don’t do that,” Casey ordered, lips brushing his jaw. “Hold onto my neck.”

“And we’re back to torture again?” Chuck muttered, but he stopped, because that would just be humiliating.

“Don’t want you to come yet. Save it.” Casey chuckled. The kid’s teeth ground together. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”

“You are a bastard,” Chuck replied under his breath, but since he was the one being carried, he dropped his head on Casey’s shoulder and held on. “Where are we going?”

“Gonna stoke up the fire.” Casey steered them along the side of the firewood crib and into the kitchen. And strangely, curled against him, Chuck had never felt so safe. “We’ll get you warm,” Casey said, the hot promise underneath making Chuck blush harder. 

“Look out for the cat,” the kid warned, watching Casey dodge the feline. As though drawn in, Chuck sunk his weight against him when they reached the hearth, waiting for Casey to let him down. When it didn’t happen, he glimpsed at the other man quizzically, trying to ignore the fiery breath at his neck. “Uh, Casey, aren’t you going to put me down?” he asked.

A hand moved lower, a few fingers sliding into his tender crease. “Need to get the lube,” Casey replied, reaching behind the kid to grab his pack, hanging from a peg on the wall. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to put you the floor, eh?”

“Let? Wait. Did you say on the floor?” Chuck leaned back in his arms, wide-eyed. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a little domineering in the bedroom department?”

Casey slanted him a grin. “Not just there, brown eyes,” he said, helping himself to a handful of slender ass. “You tell me. Do you still think you’re getting down anytime soon?”

-x-End Wings of Grace Chapter Twenty-One-x-


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Casey opened his sleepy eyes to find his young lover’s face very, very close, his nose nearly brushing the line of his jaw. Chuck had leaned over him, one hand bracing his chin, his dark chocolate eyes watching him intently.

“Are you awake?” the kid asked in a quiet voice. His other hand moved in a slow, dragging stroke down the center of Casey’s chest, over smooth muscle to his abdomen ….

“I am now.” Casey heard his own voice getting throaty. The short cat nap in front of the fire, sprawled out on a thick blanket, was partially to blame for the sleep-rough tone. But the rest of the blame lay firmly on the shoulders of the beautiful kid next to him. And the stroke that finally ended with Chuck’s fingers tracing his length.

“I couldn’t sleep.” Placing his face directly over Casey’s, he gave him a petulant look. “Can’t believe you left me like … well, like this.”

“Builds character,” Casey said to him, leering up at the kid.

“So does this.” As a slow smile crossed Chuck’s lips, he closed his hand on the heated steel of Casey’s dick. His own cockiness gave way to impressiveness despite himself. Casey could see his sense of propriety slip from his face. “God, you are so ….”

“- ready for you,” Casey said, responding to the touch, as stiff as he had been before the bath. He took only a moment to wonder how long it would take to find another man who could have that effect on him.

“I almost forgot,” Chuck said, his face so close his eyes disappeared into one blurry brown orb. Oh, but his hand. He circled him, his touch amazingly deft and gentle, and kept stroking. “I should thank you for setting me down. How else could I do this?” Warm fingers around him, they took another lazy long trip up and down.

“Mmm … hell. Who taught you to fight anyway?” Casey asked, his voice catching.

“No one.” Now Chuck’s hand stilled. Great. Kid was smart, but not the best multi-tasker. One thing at a time seemed to take his full concentration. “I taught myself, I guess.” He brightened. “So, I wasn’t that bad?”

Casey’s chuckle was hoarsened by having a rock hard dick, especially since nothing was being done about it at the moment. “Kid, I dropped you because I was laughing.”

“Laughing?” Chuck’s expression firmed. “Was it really that funny?”

“Jesus, princess. Never go for a man’s arms or his legs,” Casey advised, soothing a hand over the kid’s neck. “Unless you’re sure you can overpower him. Those are his areas of strength. If someone like … well, a skinny rail like you, is gonna take on a larger man, you have to find his weaker spots.”

“Is this one of them?” At least that got him to refocus. He demonstrated with a loose fist running along him, before the kid leaned over to flash a grin. “Because … it doesn’t seem weak.”

“It is when you’re kicked in it. Trust me on that.”

Chuck’s grin broadened. “Well, trust me. I’m not going to do that.” No, instead, he made Casey’s head fall back, just as Chuck moved his hand lower, rolled his balls gently in his fingers. “What other places are weak?”

“Easy … brown eyes,” Casey murmured, running his knuckles along the slope of Chuck’s jaw. “Those for sure, though I bet you knew that.” He inhaled sharply as the kid’s hand took hold of him again, reflexively tightening when Chuck rubbed the ridge, gave another careful stroke. “Mm. Nose … neck, ears – hell, pull his pinky finger, and the rest of his hand is going to follow.”

Chuck looked to the side, towards the fire, and pressed his lips together. Despite having a long naked body lined up to his, the pressure of his skin on every available inch, Casey felt a fleeting cool barrier slide between them. He knew exactly what was going on under that mop of hair. That Casey was explaining how to protect himself when Chuck would have only his fists and wits to do it.

“You should stick to what you’re good at,” Casey went on, a teasing light in his tone, tracing a thumb over his bottom lip.

Chuck started at the touch, looked down at him, a few thoughts passing behind his eyes. Stuck there for a minute, wavering, but he seemed to realize none of them needed saying. The kid finally smiled, slumped every muscle against him. “What I’m good at seems to put you to sleep.”

 

“Then don’t be so good at it,” Casey told him, laying a hand on his hair, tangled there, pulling him down for a long and deep kiss. Hopefully, that would be the end of it. Dark thoughts, protection, keeping him safe. Didn’t matter. Tonight, tomorrow, he could go back to being an invincible bastard who didn’t care about this kid lying next to him. His safety, his future. None of it.

“Do you want me to keep doing this?” Chuck’s fingers eased into a tentative stroke rather than a clutch of a minute ago, and Casey figured the tentativeness was his own fault. He was the cause, owing to the fact the kid had picked up on a look that Casey never gave away. His face had the specters of regret and longing poking him like a quiet knife between ribs.

Not allowed to have those feelings. Ever.

Dammit, this kid.

“I thought you wanted … because, me? I really would like to … if that’s okay?” Chuck added, pulling back, sweeping those dark inquisitive eyes over his face.

“My God, if you ask one more time if this is okay ….” Pushing away the unsettling thoughts, Casey focused on only tonight, this, as he lifted his hips to the friction, giving a little thrust into the curve of his hand. “That answer enough for you?”

The kid ducked his head, taking Casey aback by nipping gently on his bottom lip, then kissing him deeply. One of them quivered. Casey closed his eyes and let Chuck take his lips, which reminded him how long it had been for the kid to sport that pretty erection of his. His precious control was slipping, and Casey was fine with that.

Wet and covered in a little begging, the kiss went on until they were both gasping. Then Chuck spoke against Casey’s hair, muffled. “Too perfect … now can we please ….?” The hand on his cock clasped him again, rolled down, slowly, like he was memorizing all of it with is fingertips.

“Oh, Jesus,” Casey said, letting out a breath. That time, as Chuck slid his hand over him, long fingered, sure, Casey stretched his bare legs, wriggled his toes in response. “God, kid ….” Reaching up, he cupped his jaw to let him know the answer was still yes, and emphasized it by drawing his thumb over Chuck’s stubbly cheek.

“You look like a big bear … or a mountain lion,” Chuck said smiling softly, his finger, one finger, smoothing over him like the billow of a wave.

It was those eyes watching him, inspecting every bit of his reaction to the kid’s hand, that finally made him speak up. “What’re you looking at, pancake?”

“Just …nothing,” Chuck replied quickly, averting his eyes to the long narrow calves, roped with muscle, his hand now curled on his waist. “I like … your skin. Feels good. Warm.” The kid’s fingers roamed down, grazing over his dick. “Here. Wow, especially here.”

“Suppose you wanna use my body for sex again?” Casey had to suppress a grin at the prospect.

“Suppose you’re going to act like you have a problem with that?” Chuck answered, cocking a dubious brow at him.

Casey snorted. “Point for you kid.” As a reward, he brought a palm down and stroked him, long and firm, his big hand making Chuck arch his hips against his thigh.

“Oh.” The kid sucked in a breath between his teeth. “That’s … about damn time.” He struggled briefly, but not knowing what else to do, he began to lower himself on his back.

“Nuh-uh.” Casey tapped him on the thigh to move. “If that’s what you’re thinking, I don’t want you on your back.”  
The pink tint that crept to his ears confirmed that indeed, Casey had guessed correctly. “I thought … I mean, don’t you want ….” He trailed off, a little shyly.

“Not this time. I’m gonna stay like this … feels good.” Casey turned his head to the side and brushed his hand over Chuck’s stomach, back and forth, contemplating … because there were a few ways he could feel even better.

“Like that?” Chuck brows rose. “But … you’re -”

“- about to get more comfortable,” Casey finished for him. With his decision made, he took Chuck’s wrist and gave it a pull. “Come here.”

“I know you’re accustomed to just doing whatever you want – without explaining?” He delicately attempted to twist his wrist out of the grasp. “But I’d appreciate knowing what you mean by ‘staying like that’.”

Casey lifted his head and held on. Christ. Had he ever been with anyone this inexperienced? Or nervous? Still? The kid’s hand did in fact tremble as he tried to pull away.

The urge to shoot the roommate and chase away the shadows cast only a brief pall over him. Casey loosened his grip and brushed a few fingers over the bristle of stubble on Chuck’s chin. “I’d like you to climb up here,” he said. “Why don’t you straddle me, eh?” He kept his voice low and rich, giving a little encouragement with a hand on the kid’s lower belly. “I want to watch you.”

“Watch me?” The kid shook his head, still pink. “You mean, you want me to …well ….”

“Would you like to go for a ride, brown eyes?” Casey asked, wrapping an arm around his waist. “Come on.” Pressing his body close to him, he felt compelled to remind the kid of something. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“I … I guess … you could show me -” he agreed, his hard on trumping any lingering doubts.

“Good.” Giving him a droll look, Casey dipped his hand and squeezed his left buttock. “Now sit up and climb on.”

Chuck cleared his throat and tried to remove the groping hand, but Casey fought it by shifting his hand to the right cheek. “It’s not like climbing up on a horse and riding, you know.” The kid paused for a moment considering. “And this may come to a surprise to you, but I’m not a natural on a horse, so I suppose there’s no way I can talk you into … other things?”

“Nope,” Casey said, running a hand down his back in an act of encouragement.

“Isn’t this – like last night? I’m sure you remember? When I almost sprained vital body parts when I tried to -”

“Nothing like last night, though I’ve got no complaints about it. Don’t recall you did, either,” Casey added in a mumble.

“I … didn’t,” Chuck agreed slowly, resting a hand in the middle of his chest.

Casey tautened down to his toes, smiling, and reached past his head for the pack he had left by the settee. “Have your knees on the floor this time,” he explained, glancing up. “And maybe you’ll learn how to use those gangly legs of yours.”

“What – what are you doing with that?” Chuck nodded at the pack.

Casey flashed the tin of lube and rolled his eyes. He looked up in time to see Chuck get flushed to his nipples. The temptation was too ripe, so Casey had to pinch one of those firm nubs and watch the kid’s cock jump. Smiling, he then reached between their bodies to stroke his cock for him, running his knuckles up and down in a teasing movement. “You’re more than ready, aren’t ya, kid?”

“Sometimes you talk too much,” Chuck said, obviously smothering a smile of his own. As he straddled Casey’s middle, he put his hands on his chest, clutched as if testing his perch, and dug in with his fingers. Letting Casey take his full weight, the kid then closed his eyes and rocked his hips over him.

The slow, firm movement as he relaxed a little did exactly as Casey hoped – make the kid forget his anxiousness at the feel of their dicks rubbing along each other, at the newness of it all.

“Oh …” the kid breathed, licking his dry lips.

Casey cupped his face in the dim light, thumb stroking his jaw. “Look at me, Chuck,” he said, arching up. “I want you … to look at me for this.”

The kid had only given him a brief glance, but now he swallowed and met his gaze. Casey held it as he lubed his fingers, guiding them in. Slow, easy. God, the kid was still tight, tight as a virgin, but he convulsed against Casey’s dick, fingers exploring his upper torso while rubbed against him.

“Come on … Casey.” Chuck gasped between words. The need for release had finally made him drop some of those bothersome inhibitions.

“Hang on, tiger,” Casey said, snorting with mirth. Now that he had a few fingers properly coated, he pushed the tin of to the side. “You’ll be thanking me later that I took the time to watch out for you.”

“You’re a gentleman,” Chuck deadpanned with a lurch downward that made Casey lift his hips.

It was almost too fast, as if the kid was now a winded horse on the last hundred yards of the trail. Almost home, and Jesus, he was hot. There were trickles of sweat down the middle of his chest, more gleaming on their flesh, and the proximity to the burning embers had little to do with it.

Casey wasted no time as a thick finger slid in. Then two, and it was getting easier each time.

“Come … down. Easy, kid … yeah, like that.” Casey held his cock in one hand and gripped the kid’s thigh, feeling him lower his body, the kid letting him enter his slicked ass. Immediately, Chuck was all around him, the smell of his hair, the clean musk of his skin. Just his.

“God … you …” Chuck murmured, using his shaky knees to lift his himself over him. And he came down again, proving Casey’s point that he’d get the hang of it soon enough. Seated in his ass, Casey tipped his head back into the blanket, and then swore softly as Chuck groaned. He could barely restrain himself at the excruciating feel of it, the kid’s ass muscles holding him as he slid home. Again, sliding in so deep.

“Christ …” Casey whispered, holding him tighter. “You like that?”

“J-John … oh.”

“Hmm?”

Chuck looked down at him with hazy eyes and clung to his firm flesh, rocking his hips, plainly adjusting to his girth.

“There’s … ah – s-something I haven’t told you.”

The words didn’t sink in right away. When they did, Casey straightened under him and ran a hand through his hair, slightly annoyed. “Don’t even think of finishing that now.”

“It’s … important.”

“More than this?” Two could play dirty. Casey took hold of the kid’s cock and started stroking in rhythm, precisely tuned with the rise and fall of his wobbly legs.

“It’s not bad – ah – I promise!” Chuck sucked in a breath as Casey began to work the broad head, the kid already leaking on his fingertips. “Tomorrow’s Monday – no ….”

“So?” He thrust, thrust deeper, looking for the place that would make him end it right there. But instead, the kid rose on his knees, and left Casey’s cock begging for the down stroke.

“You have to listen to me.”

“Like hell, I do. Did you forget?" Grabbing the kid’s hips, Casey steered him down. "Who still in charge here?”

“Oh …that was evil,” Chuck breathed, closing his eyes. Not evil enough to grind down on him, however, the larger man had to note.

“So is this.” Casey's body rippled as he lifted his hips.

“I have to go to t-town tomorrow.”

Casey stilled, rendered speechless by the kid’s request. And, shit, not to mention his impeccable timing.

“No,” Casey said evenly, and another lift and thrust had Chuck moaning. Hips rocking to take all of him, slick and hot, and Lord, he was going to erupt any second. If that wasn’t enough to get his attention, Casey kept pumping him, a big hand riding along his nice long dick, a move that would hopefully close his fucking trap.

“Yes, I am!” the kid blurted, even while Casey worked his strong fingers over the ridged head to derail this.

“Hell no, you’re not.” Secretly, Casey amazed himself with the ability to counter him, since the kid picked that moment push down, draw away, pushing, squirming …..

“C-can’t stop me.”

“Oh … bloody hell ….” He could do whatever he wanted, Casey figured, so he answered with a poke that made the kid’s eyes bulge.

“Wh-what – oh … you asshole – hap-happened to trust? The two way street between us?”

“Did you do this on purpose?” Casey hooked both hands around his waist, applying enough pressure to steer him down. With his heart thundering and physical need making his fingers bury into Chuck’s flesh, he rammed up into that ass worth dying for.

It was. God, he would do it, too.

It occurred to him that he had never thought that before. About anyone.

“Sh - Casey ….” Chuck’s head lolled back as he shuddered, running his hands over Casey’s biceps. “… so good.”

At first, Casey thought that was the end of it, and Chuck would get back to riding and forget this ‘going to town’ nonsense. “Use those legs for what they were made for, kid …” Casey encouraged, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip when he slid home again. “Fuck.”

Yeah, right. It only took about two seconds for the kid to rise over him in order to find his voice. “No, you don’t understand. Monday. It’s the day I go to Morgan’s. It’s non-negotiable. We barter. They expect me. I get supplies, food-”

“I said no.” Casey bucked up and brought him down, forcing low groans in both of their throats. “Jesus. Sweet little ass….”

“If – ah, you’re making your point – I get it! But – mmm! – if I don’t show up, Morgan will come here and look for me!”

The larger man cracked an eye open to see the kid looking down at him with those pleading brown eyes. Vulnerable and exposed. The kicked puppy variety that Chuck seemed to pull out of his bag of tricks at will.

Little shithead. “Who the hell is Morgan?”

“My friend.”

“I don’t trust your friend. The answer’s still no.” Casey put a firm, inexorable hand to Chuck’s thigh and began to press downward. The other got back to work on the kid’s diversion. Stroking, slipping over him -

“Well, I’m saying no.” Deliberately, Chuck circled that wrist, keeping his attention on Casey’s stony face. As he held the restraint, one they both knew Casey could end in heartbeat, something shifted in the kid’s eyes. It was the stubborn resolve that got him to this godforsaken place to begin with.  
“Chuck, don’t do this now.”

“He helps me,” Chuck argued, cleared his throat. “I help him. This is my livelihood out here, John. People in town … or farmers, tradesmen - they bring in machinery, mechanical devices … anything, really, and I fix it. They pay me so that I can survive.”

“If that’s what you call this,” Casey cut in grimly.

“I do.” Chuck dipped his head to stare straight into Casey’s eyes, and reaching out, he put his hand on the side of his neck, threading fingers under his hair. “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Chuck asked softly. “When you’re gone, you want me to survive in the middle of nowhere … don’t you?”

As he peered up into the imploring set of eyes, Casey’s jaw was held so tight he thought it might crack. He had met a shitload of swindlers in his life, and none of them held a candle to the kid straddling him. No one could lower his dark long lashes like that, pleading, brushing his thumb tenderly over his nape -

\- Even when the little shyster was pulling off a goddamn double-dealing blackmail heist that would make Jesse James look like a fucking chicken thief.

Casey huffed and dragged a hand over his face. When he looked up, those damn eyes were still pinned to him. The larger man then threw his palm over his face to block them out.

“Well?” Chuck said, entwining his fingers through the hand Casey had used to cover his eyes. Long fingers locked with his, gave them a little shake. “Hiding is not going to work. We are kind of … connected right now.”

Casey drew in a breath, looking up at the slope of his abdomen, past his sinewy chest to his reddened face. Squarely into a shy smile.

“Ah … hell,” he muttered. “Looks like … we’re going to town tomorrow.”

Chuck leaned over him and dropped a kiss on his mouth, then pressed his lips to Casey’s shoulder, moving over to the fine line of bone to his bicep. “Thank you for trusting me.”

“You little sneak. I should kick your ass for that.”

The kid waggled his brows and grinned, that crooked one that made Casey’s insides simmer. Casey felt him relax, but the sheen of sweat on his cheeks told him this game was driving the little con artist just as nuts too. “If you did that,” Chuck said, “I wouldn’t be able to do this.”

“Oh God.” Casey shut his eyes, curled his fingers around Chuck’s hip, suddenly aware of how well they fit together. Knowing exactly what to do next, one of his hands moved to Chuck’s length, giving him a long drag of appreciation. “You have a point, boyo. I should wait until tomorrow to stuff your carcass in a barrel for that stunt.”

“Tomorrow, John,” Chuck repeated, fixing his gaze on him. “I’m not going to let you forget.” He placed his hands on Casey’s chest, running his fingertips over it, and lowered himself. One inch, then more, until Casey filled him deep and hard. He moved slowly, like it stung him to do it, but hurt too much not to.

As Casey blinked up at him, he saw a smile touching Chuck’s lips. “Now, shut up and let me do this,” he heard the kid say between his teeth.

Casey laughed and ran a hand up his leg. “Be my guest.”

Watching a hard quiver go through the kid, Chuck’s lips parting to handle the explosion of breath, Casey stared up intently. Reviewing every gesture, every detail, remembering. God, it made his mind go places it shouldn’t, filling his head with disquieting thoughts. Thoughts like staying here, picturing a life with him.

He could stay like this … he could see them hunting along the forested lower ridge, making dinner over the cook stove, a fire warming the cabin to the corners, keeping out the cold.

At night, bending him over the foot board of the bed, pushing him to his knees to suck his cock while a late night storm flickers and rolls over the gorge. Taking him to bed. Holding him while he slept.

Fucking. Idiot.

That’s not it at all.

Liam and his associates at Black Rock. They’d come here, looking for him, because no one in Black Rock left while they were still breathing.

They’d find this place. It was Liam himself who had pointed the way, set the plan in motion when the deal went bad. Hell, they’d find the lonely farm as easily as Casey had.

Observant as a hawk, of course, Liam would see it. Even if Casey could hide his secret under a stern mask of indifference, the kid’s brown eyes and fluttering expressions would give away everything. He couldn’t help it, they always did.

He’d see right through them, all of it. Resentment, with a mixture of jealousy and possessive heat, would bubble in his gut.

Casey would be restrained, tied tight to a chair, or a gun to the head. ‘Laddie, you’ve been away from us,’ Liam would coo, his thick Irish brogue clacking and heavy on his tongue. ‘I need to test your loyalty, Johnnie.’

They’d scavenge the farm in beginning, not finding a damn thing worth the time or effort it would take to haul it out of here. Bored by that game, Liam would then turn his attention to the kid.

He’d want him completely naked first. The prospect of breaking a man through complete humiliation and fear would make Liam snap and salivate like a wolf. When Chuck tried to fight him – and eventually, he would try to fight his way out, every trapped animal will try – the sadistic bastard would exert his privilege.

‘First in charge of Black Rock, first to take a sample,’ he’d say, claiming dibs with a low laugh. He’d haul Chuck upstairs by the hair, increasing his grip while the kid swung his legs out desperately, scared shitless and trying to grab onto anything to stop him.

It wouldn’t do any good, and Liam would get him behind that door. Then it would happen. The image was bright as sunlight behind Casey’s eyelids.

It would strip his insides out to hear it. To know the hurt and not be able to stop it.

Chuck. Liam would use the kid, rape him, let him scream until he was hoarse. Before it was over, he’d magnanimously share him with any other takers, and a pretty boy like this could have a few. One or two of the others may give in to the lure; it filled their drunken asses with gunpowder bravado and false authority they’d never earn otherwise. It had nothing to do with sex.

The evening would come. Liam would sit back in the shadows, slip out his Union Jack matchbox. Smoke a few of the cut plug cigarettes he always carried, sip from a brown bottle.

The entire time, he’d be watching Casey. Any kind of shiver, any hint of response that cut through him. Waiting for any soul-baring confessions, waiting for him to be driven to his knees. Only for the reason they would both know there was more going on here, and the retaliation wasn’t for the kid. It was for him, Liam looking into his raw open soul, wanting to know if he had given it away to this boy. The restless demon in Liam would be attracted to that, a chance to exploit what Casey lov -

 

A moan snapped him out of his thoughts. The kid moved in, bending over him, his hair falling over his temple. They were eye to eye, his lips so close, their bodies completely naked, and pressed as one, achingly aware of every touch.

“God … John,” Chuck was saying against his neck. His cock trapped in the delicious warmth between them, he rubbed against him, lost his control. Shutting his eyes, he came for him.

The heat of his body enveloped Casey, and in response, Casey’s arm bent around the kid’s waist, holding him, letting him ride out the crest before Casey did the same.

Drawing him tight to his chest, Casey had to wonder if he would ever deserve a man like this one. Willing to give up what he had and what he knew without reservation, if everything else in his life took him away from the one thing he wanted above all others.

 

It hit him then, while the two bodies were entwined, the kid’s breath fire on his neck.

The loss of Chuck’s control had nothing on his.

-x-End Wings of Grace Chapter Twenty-Two-x-


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

-x-

“Don’t pretend you’re still sleeping.”

 

“I see the way your cheek is twitching.”

 

“And you’re not doing that … cute little thing you do? Because when you’re completely dead to the world – which you’re not, I can tell, so stop playing possum – I’ve noticed that –”

“Goddammit.” Casey cracked one eye open and cleared the rustiness from his throat. “Know something? You are the most fuc –”

“Ah-ah. A little too early for that –”

“- ing frustrating man on earth,” Casey finished gruffly, despite Chuck’s dissuasion. Apparently, he didn’t feel the same way about cursing before breakfast. “What gave it away?”

“Like I would tell you?” Chuck leaned over the bed and positioned his face directly over Casey’s eyes. “Have you noticed that only one of us is completely dressed and ready to go?”

“Eh.”

Knowing it would madden him, the kid ran his finger down the angular slope of Casey’s nose. “Are you getting up? And by that, I mean – get up. I’m sure out of everything you remember last night, you might just recall that you agreed –”

“Ah, hell.” The larger man closed his eyes and grabbed at a blanket.

“Good. You do remember. We’re going into town.”

“Killed men for less than this,” Casey grumbled. He rubbed a hand over his face, and as his eyes opened to slits, his attention traveled over Chuck’s body, from the neatly combed hair to the clean shirt he had bothered to tuck in.

Chuck squirmed. Getting up wasn’t on his mind.

Or at least, getting out of bed.

“I was … thinking ….” Casey said mildly, and the heat in the words, underlined by gentle persuasion, confirmed exactly as Chuck guessed.

“Nuh-uh,” Chuck cut in. “In your dreams.”

“Humph.” Casey rolled his eyes and dragged the blanket down, freeing his arm from the tangle of warmth …

Which made it easier to catch Chuck’s wrist, the kid figured out a half second too late.

“Hey!” Chuck gasped, a little dazed to have his hand captured by a half asleep man. He glanced down and tried wrench it free. “We have plans!”

“We should adjust those plans,” Casey remarked. His tone turned deeper, putting that coaxing rumble at the end. “Come back to bed.”

“No, no, no …." Even Chuck amazed himself at the fact he found a way to twist his wrist out of the hold. “We settled it last night. We’re heading into town. Morgan expects me there.

“Settled? Is that what you called that little exhibition, long legs? First the bath? Then … heh.” As Casey tilted his head to give him a methodical look, the leer was unmistakable. Obviously, he was recalling Chuck’s rendition of Sitting Bull on a thoroughbred the night before. “Princess, you seduced me into agreeing to your little adventure. Cooked it all up by taking advantage of me, eh?”

“Uh, seduced makes it sound like it’s dirty. And it wasn’t.” The memory didn’t stop his face from infusing with color, however. The kid fought if off and nodded towards the chair. “Your pants are there. Breakfast is ready. I’ll see you downstairs.”

“You could bring it to me.”

“Nice try. Oh, and I hope you don’t mind the longer route through Devil’s Canyon. Jackson gets bloated when we take the upper ridge. I don’t know why, something about the altitude - but you don’t want to be standing behind him.”

Casey growled, threw a forearm over his eyes. “If you’re looking for your boots,” he said quietly, “you left them over here.” He lifted an arm to helpfully point the way.

“Impressive. But I’m wearing them.” The kid, unfazed, arched a brow. “Funny. I always thought stalking bears were sneakier than that. Now can you get moving?”

-x-

“Hold up, kid.” Casey spoke from behind him, since he had strangely told the kid he would be taking up the rear for this trip. Ears blazing, Chuck had asked him to repeat that.

“Hm?” His voice startled Chuck from his thoughts. It had been quiet back there for a good half hour, only the sound of hooves on the hard packed earth telling the kid that Casey was still with him.

“Pull back,” he heard the larger man say.

The day started warm. As Vic patiently plodded at Jackson’s speed, the men seemed content in their sliver of the world, green and peaceful, the sun on their backs. It was broken up only by the occasional harsh rasp of a hawk’s call, or the sudden rustling of wild grasses when the horses startled a rabbit near the trail. Until now, anyway.

Chuck turned in the saddle, craning his neck, and gave a pull on the reins. “Slow, Jackson,” he said. “We’re stopping here.” Though he had no idea why.

Confusion spread as he looked down the trail and saw that Casey had climbed off his horse. Resting his back to a tree, the larger fished out his canteen and tipped it to his mouth, a bit of water running down the column of his throat.

After a long pull, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. And from the briefest flicker in his eye, Chuck knew he had something he needed to say. The look also said they weren’t going any further until he said it.

Are you going somewhere?

He almost said it aloud, but bit his tongue back and urged Jackson over to him.

Chuck looked down to the ground and dismounted, sliding his hat from his head to wipe away some sweat. When Casey nodded and held out the canteen to him – take it - the kid gladly helped himself to the cool water.

He peeked sideways, then away when he saw Casey watching him without a word. Careful to drink only a polite amount, Chuck passed off the canteen, noticing the way Casey let their fingers briefly brush before he pulled away.

Not understanding why they had stopped here, he glanced over at Casey with a questioning look. God, how could he have missed it? The implication of Casey’s unease struck him like a thunderclap.

“Listen, kid,” Casey began, twisting the cap back on. “I’m –”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Chuck blurted, because there could only be one explanation for coming to a standstill. “I’m not going to do that!”

Casey opened his pack, not taking his eyes off him as he put away the canteen. “Do what?”

“You know … say something about –” Chuck paused there and gave an uncomfortable hand wave up and down at him. “You.”

“What about me?”

“You’re acting like you don’t know?”

Casey shrugged.

The kid took the extra step and felt the reins drop from his hand. “You’re wondering who I’m going to tell.”

“Tell? Kid, I –”

“Of course, tell.” At Casey’s amused glance, Chuck pushed a hand through his hair and began to pace. “Some people – decent people - may hear our little story - how you barged into my house with a gunshot wound, held me hostage in my own home? - and, you know, wonder, that’s all. Oh! And how could I forget that you tried to shoot me twice?!”

“Didn’t mean to the second time,” Casey muttered, as if this was a valid defense.

“Wow. That’s makes it better.” Chuck folded his arms over his jacket, reminding himself he should tamp down on the sarcasm. So he took a second to dig his boot heel in the ground. “My point is, if anyone knew –”

“Do you plan on telling anyone?” Casey asked, seeming relaxed as he leaned his back against the tree. “Let them know about me?”

“No.” Chuck faltered, the tiny cluster of nerves in his stomach expanding like a balloon. “A few days ago – yes, if I could’ve gotten out of there – damn right I would’ve done it. Or if I could’ve hollered to Sarah – if you hadn’t stopped me. Yes. No doubt.” He looked to the ground to avoid those eyes of his. “But … you have nothing to worry about … now.”

“Do I look worried, kid?” Casey took a gentle swat at Vic. She had moved over to Chuck, thrusting her nose inside the flap of his coat. “Get, girl.”

“Want this, Vic?” Pulling out the apple she was after, the kid let her snatch it from his fingers. The diversion helped him ignore Casey’s unreadable eyes passing over them. “I’m not going to say anything. Whatever has happened here between us,” he repeated, with sincerity. “You have my word.”

Casey snorted. “Are you about done spouting off?”

“What?” Chuck gave him a sour look, a bit peeved at the way his pledge had been dismissed. “I guess … that about covers it.”

“Good,” Casey replied, bending down to pick up a stick. “Now can we get to what I was going to say?”

“You weren’t … this wasn’t about ….” Chuck looked up in surprise, not seeing how the stick fit into the conversation. “Okay. What are you going to do with that?”

“This is where we part ways, kid.” Casey’s tone was blandly neutral as he scrubbed one hand over the scruff of his jaw.

“Part … ways?” That was not his heart that had jumped into his throat. Just a bad breakfast was all. Chuck swallowed and played with a few coins in one pocket. “So, this is it,” he managed. “You’re leaving.”

“That’s right, I will be,” Casey said.

Chuck gazed down at his boots, quashing the emotions he knew were crossing his face. God, he hated that about himself. Being an open book sucked at times like this.

“Come here,” Casey said with interest. He shifted, planting his feet, and pulled him in by a coat sleeve when he didn’t move fast enough. Whatever Casey saw in his expression, it made him incline his head at the kid. Curiosity and … something else Chuck didn’t recognize crept into his eyes.

Then he smiled, and the kid almost started when he reached up to brush a thumb over his cheek. “Just not now, brown eyes. You’re going into town alone. Can’t have you seen with me.”

The hard ache in his chest slowly subsided. “I guess that would be hard to explain,” Chuck said, looking away to hide his face. “So what happens after I’m done in town? How will I know how to find you?”

“We’ll be meeting back here – at this tree – in two hours. Can you handle that?”

“Yes.” The kid pretended to check that his rifle was still slung over his back, silently cursing his stupidity. “If Morgan lets me leave.”

“Lets you?”

“Long story.”

“Then save it for never,” Casey replied.

“Noted. But you still haven’t explained, then. Why are we waiting here?”

“Take the stick.”

“Why?” Chuck didn’t reach out for the broken branch that Casey held out to him. His brain was still stuck in another place. “I mean, if you’re worried about protection, I did bring my buckshot rifle … and though I didn’t actually put any bullets in it, I think the intimidation factor alone would –”

“God, you’re serious, too.” Casey frowned. “Here, I said take it.” About two more seconds passed before Casey strode forward, took the kid’s hand, and made him take it. “And don’t drop it.”

“Is there a reason I’m holding a stick?”

“Draw it out for me in the dirt.” As he spoke, Casey dragged the sole of his boot over the ground, dusting off a smooth patch of earth. “The town.”

“I hate to keep asking this, but why?”

“I don’t go anywhere without knowing what I’m walking into.”

Chuck blinked at that, but he couldn’t stop the small sardonic grin. “You did at least one time.”

“When I look up,” Casey warned, “that smile should be gone.” He grunted, mumbling something about a slow death under the glare of it. “One Goddamn mistake and look what it got me. A skinny pain in the ass.”

Chuck’s grin broadened, until he remembered why he was holding a stick. “Wait. Are you casing the joint? A bank, maybe? Hoping to get in a little heist while I’m browsing through Morgan’s?” A horrible thought struck. “Hang on – am I the decoy here?"

“Christ.” Casey shook his head and had to chuckle to himself. “You’d be the last person they’d suspect, that’s damn straight.” He gave it more thought. “Mmph. Which actually holds some merit in my book –”

“A very scary book, I might add.”

“But there’s nothing in this two plow town that interests me.” Casey nudged him with an elbow. “Now show me.”

Nothing? Ouch. For a second, he was tempted to hand the stick back to him. Not nicely, either.

“All right ….” Chuck set the end of the branch in the dirt and began tracing a square. “This is the Tabor – it’s a hotel. Morgan’s Mercantile is here, and there’s a Post at one end of his –”

“You really think I’m going to be sending off a letter?”

“Oh-kay, then. That’s a no to parcels wrapped with love to the kin.” Chuck slanted him a cautious look as the significance of this exercise unfolded in his head. “I get it now. You’re afraid –”

“Heh.”

“Fine – let’s say, you’d rather not meet certain people in town.” He couldn’t begin to fathom the reasons why this was important, and he wanted to ask, but Casey’s eyes had darkened with impatience. “Here’s … uh, Sheriff Kemper’s office.”

“Keep going,” Casey said.

Dragging the stick to the right, Chuck traced another box. “There’s a jail in back,” he said, and his voice became a little too excited. “They say Bat Masterson was locked up in that cell at one time. I’m not sure if it’s true, but his name is carved under the bench in one of the corners. I saw it myself.”

“Really.” Casey raised a brow at that. “You’ve spent some time in there, have you, kid?”

Chuck wrinkled his nose at insinuation. “Of course not.”

“Then how would you know?”

He immediately felt heat flood through him at the skeptical look on Casey’s face. “Uh, it was Morgan, actually. He kind of, well, sort of ‘borrowed’ the key from the sheriff’s office one time – hey, it was only when we knew the jail was empty, and we wanted to see what it looked like on the inside. To see if there really were bullet holes and a few bricks missing where Bat’s gang of – and you can stop laughing, okay. Geez.”

“You’re a piece of work, button,” Casey told him, still chuckling.

“Very funny.” The kid lifted his chin. “You can’t blame us for being curious.”

“Saloon?”

“My oversight,” Chuck said dryly as he drew another square. “That would be on the other side of the street from Morgan’s. Over here and down the road a bit.”

“Buachaill cliste.” Casey looked up from the dirt, giving him a look that made Chuck let go of the stick.

“Uh, sorry? I studied Latin, not – Irish mafia.”

“Heh. One more thing,” he said, hand on his holster.

“What is it?” Chuck asked, but he knew. With his mouth still hanging open, a forearm wrapped around his middle, and a big hand pulled him in close by a belt loop.

“Keep your mouth open this time,” Casey murmured, half smiling. And leaning in, he threaded his fingers through Chuck’s untidy brown hair, hauled him in the rest of the way, and kissed the question from his lips. The kiss was long and deep, more demanding than he expected for being out in the open and under the sunlight.

It gave him every reason to be back promptly in two hours. He’d be counting the time, he knew, if it meant he could get another kiss like that one.

As quickly as he had towed him in, Casey released the kid from his arms. Chuck’s breathless expression made him grin. “Be back in two hours,” Casey repeated, touching his thumb to the kid’s cheek, stroking a leaping curl before he stepped away. “Don’t forget me, eh?

The words tugged at his heart painfully, but that would be a worry for later. “I’m pretty certain that’s not possible,” the kid said, drawing in a steadying breath.

Chuck stayed there next to the tree, watching Casey climb effortlessly into the saddle and take the reins, the loose straps seeming to get lost in those huge hands of his. Without looking down at the kid, he urged Vic into a brisk trot, heading towards a bend in the path.

The air seemed to turn cooler. Chuck pulled at the opening of his thin coat, eyes and ears straining to discern if he would turn to him and say something. The lines of his broad back were as straight as the whitebark pines, and the kid admired the long legs, dangling in the stirrups. Even now, all smooth muscles and power.

He never did turn around.

“Correction,” Chuck admitted to himself, watching as Casey moved out of sight. “Completely impossible.”

-x-

“Oh, Good. You remembered!” Morgan bustled around the counter before Chuck had even closed the wide door to Morgan’s Mercantile and Feed Emporium. “Mondays are our days, man! I was ready to send out the search party!”

“Whoa.” Not prepared for that level of enthusiasm, the kid bounced backwards, nearly tipping over a feed barrel. “Hey, buddy,” he said, righting the barrel. “I –”

“Get over here, my vertically enhanced friend!” Morgan sidestepped a crate, picking up speed as he approached. “I’ve been waiting all morning! I have so much news of the world!”

“News? What’s – oh, no, Morgan.” Chuck’s hands flew up in protective gesture. “We talked about this – please don’t.”

“C’mon, man!”

“People stare when you do that,” the kid hissed, backing up a step. “Don’t you think grown men shouldn’t - ah!”

Too late. Morgan leapt. Like tiny vices, two short legs wrapped around Chuck’s hips. Meanwhile, the rest of Morgan clung to his upper body like a starved leech.

“But I never know if you’re actually coming back!” the smaller man squawked, hugging him hard.

Chuck peered around the store with some trepidation, speculating who had witnessed the display of affection. Down the next aisle, his gaze was caught by a pair of rather disapproving grey eyes beneath an ivory and brown bonnet.

Mrs. Hillman’s face tightened. “Nice catch,” the matron said, and sniffed at their behavior.

“Sorry, so sorry,” Chuck said, genuinely apologetic to the properly appalled lady. He tried to look as nonchalant as one could with a hundred and fifty pound bearded man adhered to him. Not so easy, he found.

The woman returned the greeting with a curt nod and shuffled out of ear shot. As quick as he could, Chuck slapped a hand on Morgan’s shoulders and tried to wriggle out of his – well, it wasn’t a grasp. It was more of a whole-body hold.

“Are you mad?”

“Morgan. Let. Go.”

“Oh. Uh-huh … I see ….” Morgan breathed out a long sigh of resignation, and with reluctance unwound his legs. “I keep forgetting about your aversion to –”

“Wearing you?”

“I was going to say public displays of affection – but you know what?” The noise of his feet hitting the ground was drowned out by a ‘psst’. He whistled again and signaled for Chuck to follow him down one of the narrow aisles. “Enough of that – I’m bursting, man!”

“You could just shake hands, you know.” He hid his embarrassment while he smoothed out his shirt, but the uncertainty got to him. “Did you say bursting? Wait. Don’t tell me that the girl – the one that they say has three … was in town?”

“Heresy.” Morgan paused beside a display of hats, and as Chuck caught up, he slapped him on the shoulder. “All a rumor, my friend.”

“Really.” Chuck kept his face controlled, though he was sure an awful curiosity shone through. “And you would know this from …?”

“Of course not! Do I look like I could get a little –”

“Don’t say it–”

“From a woman purported to have three –”

“Okay,” Chuck broke in, holding his hands up. “And please, do not finish that.”

They both turned at the tinkling of the shop bells. Morgan didn’t pay much attention, but Chuck looked over at the woman in a brown walking skirt, dusty from the road, and pasted on a polite smile.

“Welcome to Morgan’s Mercantile,” Chuck said in a hurry, wincing as the words slipped out. Once she swished by, he shot Morgan a puzzled look. “Why am I greeting people at your store?”

“Somebody has to,” Morgan answered. “C’mon, Chuck.” With a sharp glance, he took Chuck by the elbow. “This way. We can have privacy in the back.”

“Why do we need privacy?” It seemed prudent to ask, since with Morgan, one never knew. Despite that worry, Chuck let himself get schlepped along by the coat sleeve. “And I hate to tell you this, but I do actually need to shop today – okay, easy on the coat.”

“Shh! She’ll hear you.” Immediately, Morgan swiveled around him to peer over a shelf stacked high with tin pots and pans. “No one can know this, man!” he said as he tugged. “It’s ….” He gently pushed Chuck in the shoulder, looked to the side again, and then whispered urgently, “Private.”

Chuck cautiously reached for a can. Beans. He needed beans. Might as well get some shopping knocked off the list. “Explain.”

“Listen, Chuck. I used the word private,” Morgan enunciated.

The kid pretended to check the label and thought hard for a minute. “This can only mean one thing,” he said, smiling at the agitated body language. “Are you telling me you met someone, Morgan Grimes? This is about a girl, isn’t it?”

“You know I can’t answer when Mrs. Hillman is right there. Bat ears! Now, come on.”

“I know the signs,” Chuck pointed out. He was happy that his friend, for once, didn’t seem glum over his prospects. “Whenever you talk about a girl, you get this way.”

“This?” Morgan hurriedly straightened his vest, wet a thumb and smoothed his eyebrows. “This is me. Perfectly normal! Why would you suggest this is about a girl?”

“It’s Anna, isn’t it? The one who works across the street?” Chuck extricated his sleeve with a good yank and folded his arms over his coat. He never knew when Morgan would decide to drag him again, and he wanted to be prepared. “The … rather, well, let’s just say promiscuously dressed bartender from the Pony Up Saloon?”

Morgan turned to Chuck with a look of worship. “Man. It’s not just at work – she dresses that way all the time!”

“And this is a good thing … or a bad thing?”

“Good! No. Bad! It’s bad,” Morgan said, propelling him towards the store room. “I mean, think about it, man. Every Tom, Dick, and non-bearded, much-taller cowboy will be trying to –”

“Morgan.” Chuck put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “You’re freaking out a little.”

“You’re right. You are so right.” The smaller man played with a button of his vest and began pacing the aisle. “What do I do, Chuck? How do I get a woman like that to notice a short, slightly neurotic yet somewhat charming shop keeper?”

“So you do like her?” Chuck waggled his eyebrows. “Because a minute ago, I swear you said –”

“Chuck, you’re smart, so stay with me.” At that moment, the shop bells over the door interrupted them, and they both turned to see – well, Chuck could only make out the top of a hat, now that they were in the back of the store. “Crap. Incoming customer. This way.” Morgan took his sleeve again and pulled Chuck in the opposite direction. “Hurry, before they see us.”

“What if that person wants something?” Chuck asked, stumbling along after him.

“Chuck, focus. This is important.” Morgan steered him into a back corner, heading to a table next to the Post counter. “What do I do?”

“Uh, talk to her?”

“Are you insane?!” Morgan took Chuck by the elbows and gave him a little shake. “I can’t talk to a woman like that. I can’t just – oh my God.” He stood still as a rock, staring, before he jabbed Chuck with a finger to the chest. “Ho-ly shit.”

“What?” Chuck’s eyes flicked to the left, then to the right in quick succession. It was a relief, though slightly confusing, that he saw no one. “Morgan, speak to me.”

Confusion gave way to full bewilderment when Morgan’s mouth twitched. Or perhaps it had to do with the fact he hadn’t looked away, and instead raised his eyebrows accusingly. Directly at him.

“Oh boy,” Morgan said, and for a minutes, his mouth opened and closed wordlessly like a fish on the sand. “I – I don’t believe it ….”

“Buddy.” Chuck frowned, and picked up a bar of soap. He remembered he was completely out of soap, but it was worth it. “Speak to me.”

“Pootang.” Morgan said it with reverence. Whatever it meant.

“Hm?” Chuck looked from his face to give the soap a sniff. Whoa. Pears and rosewater. How many months would it take for that scent not to give him a hard on?

“Dude,” Morgan piped up, breaking that thought. “I don’t believe it!” Then, excitedly, “You’re getting pootang!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Poo-tang?”

Chuck blinked down at him fuzzily and put the soap in his basket. “Are we having the same conversation?”

“Bangtail?” Morgan blurted, bumping Chuck with his shoulder. “A bit of the ole in and out?” Right then, a hand motion attempted to help out. “Riding the wild Gillooly?”

“I still don’t –”

“Dude! Someone is buttering your beans!”

A horrible, horrible flutter in his lower belly had Chuck’s senses doing cartwheels. “You – you don’t mean –”

“Heck, yes, I mean it!” A hearty slap on the back forced a cough out of the kid. “Sex. You’re having sex – and don’t deny it, my friend. It’s written all over your face. You have this – oh, I don’t know - golden …light ….” Morgan made a whirling motion with his hands. “You’re positively glowing, man!”

Miserably, Chuck realized there was no hole to hide in where he stood. “Morgan, I –”

Morgan tapped his own cheek and checked for enemy, otherwise known as customer, encroachment at the front of the store. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess.” He lowered his voice, taking on the singsong pitch of a storyteller. One who was intent on torturing his best friend, seemingly. “Late one night, a lonely ranch hand rode up to your farm, looking for a dry warm barn to stay in for the night, and you, being the gentleman you are –”

“Oh my God oh my God.” Chuck felt the horrible flutter becoming a full-on war in his stomach. “Please stop.”

“Or wait. I’ve got it.” The smaller man snapped his fingers. “A rugged, tall miner – we can make him tall in this scenario, can’t we? Because I’m picturing you with someone tall. Anyway, he rode down from ridge, weary and looking for a good meal, and you offered up –”

“Please,” the kid said, burying his eyes behind his hands. “What can I do to make this stop?”

“Talk to me, Chuck.” Morgan leaned heavily on a shelf and threw his hands in the air. “Don’t deny it. You have a boyfriend.”

Chuck squirmed in his boots. He was reminded of one thing, however. Despite the dreadful way the store had begun to rock, that was why he loved Morgan Grimes.

The phrase that included the word boyfriend had no trace of discomfort or rejection. He said it so simply, boyfriend, as in male love interest. The unqualified acceptance had twisted Chuck’s heart in his chest the first time he heard it.

It was an accident, how it happened in the first place. Morgan knowing about him. After placing his latest purchases in a sack, Chuck made a courteous offhand comment when he invited Morgan to visit his farm, stop by for supper. It surprised him when Morgan appeared in his doorway the following evening, dressed for supper, hat in hand.

That was it. Two bachelors, a bit lost and lonesome, found they had enough in common to fill the conversational void. When they ended up in Chuck’s workshop, Morgan listened eagerly and without mockery as the kid described every aspect of his project. He seemed to understand the dream of doing something that everyone else said was impossible. Immediately, Chuck liked him for that.

Well. It was inevitable. Neutral topics would eventually drift into one he knew nothing about. Such as women. When it did, Chuck listened and feigned interest politely at what he hoped were the correct points in the dialogue. He had trained himself, just keep his head down and keep tinkering. This time, it was on a sticky dovetail joint that refused to fit properly.

Even at the age of seventeen, he had given up trying to bury other’s suspicions, and just found it best to not contribute to the conversation. Chuck had made peace with his sexual orientation early in life, but for some reason, the world around him had not.

He wasn’t going to change. Enlightenment couldn’t be too far off, he hoped. Maybe someday, they would change.

It was that second, as his mind had wandered, that he heard Morgan say something that made goose bumps rise on his neck. Punching his shoulder lightly, Morgan said he noticed Chuck smiling stupidly at a certain broad-shouldered man in his store the other day.

That was the weird part. He said it without rancor. No titters, no murmurs, and without shoving him face first in the dirt?

He couldn’t help it. In an instant of blind trust, one that may have been fueled by a few amicable glasses of whiskey, Chuck confided that Morgan saw too much. He looked away shyly after he said it.

And for Morgan, that was all it took.

He barely looked up from the piece of cake he had brought after splitting it in half in a napkin. “Say no more,” Morgan had told him, held out his right hand, palm up. He began telling him of all the prospects in town, lamenting the fact men outnumbered women five to one. Therefore, Morgan went on, Chuck’s odds of finding the right man were significantly brighter than his odds of finding a bride.

Chuck fiddled with that stubborn tail joint, listening to Morgan’s stories while the fire in his workshop’s stove died down. He decided then and there that Morgan Grimes would be his new best friend. Besides, he needed one, especially since the old one had turned out to be an asshole. Why would he suffer through that when his new friend gave him total acceptance, regardless of who he chose to love?

Wait. Did he just think the word love?

“Chuck?”

Chuck’s head snapped to attention as he heard Morgan purposefully clear his throat.

“Boyfriend?” Morgan asked.

Of course, acceptance was one thing. Craziness, another. Because over his dead body would he let Morgan know an outlaw was in his bed.

Just … no.

Chuck hunched his shoulders and dropped his hand to his side when he realized that he had been fiddling with his lapel. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he argued. “Think about it Morgan, no one is going to find me out there –”

“I should tell you, you’re doing that thing with your fingers.”

The kid gave him an aggravated look and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Morgan, can you show me the jobs lined up for this week?” he said, keeping his voice business-like. “I have a few items to return to you …. But not Old man Varner’s sextant. I –”

“Sextant?” Morgan asked, trying to get a reaction.

“Yes, Morgan,” Chuck said, dropping it before he got any other ideas. “You can use it to measure distances between objects – but I don’t have it. I … didn’t get as far this week as I had hoped.”

“Ah ha!” Morgan poked a finger in the air. “I knew it!”

“Knew …?”

“Getting the horizontal refreshment kind of takes your focus from other things, aye, Chuck?” Morgan gave him a knowing wink. “Hey! Does he know about the –”

Chuck watched in horror as his bearded friend bent his arms and made a flapping motion like an angry chicken. “Morgan, what are –”

“The you know …,” Morgan said, still flapping.

“Stop. Please,” Chuck begged, and then added a bit indignantly. “The wings are stationary. They don’t flap.”

“Well, does he know?”

“Who?”

“The tall stranger!”

“One, there is no man,” Chuck insisted, reaching for a can of … something. He didn’t even look as he shoved it in a basket. “And two, if you’re not going to help me sort this out, that’s fine.” The kid tipped his head in the direction of this week’s work orders, heaped on the table, as they were every Monday. “I guess I can go through the inventory myself – though I know how much you like to play with some of this stuff.”

“That’s low, man.”

“So was the pootang reference.” Chuck set the basket on the floor and turned to the table. A pile of broken junk had never made him this happy. The kid attempted to pick up the first thing he saw, a black and gold Singer sewing machine. He jumped when the hand wheel popped off, rolling like a wagon wheel across the table.

“Well, Leonardo, I think I see the problem,” he said, trying not to be a smart ass while he shoved it back in place. “What else?”

“Okay. Okay, man. You win.” In a signal of temporary defeat, Morgan lifted a palm at him. “I get it. You’re not ready to share with Uncle Morgan. Look at you – all lit up like a - you’re at that giddy, unwieldy stage of your infatuation, and you want to keep him all to yourself. I get it, man.”

“Morgan, there’s nothing to tell,” Chuck lied, moving on to a mechanical bank, a heavy iron bull frog with a tongue that took coins from a lily pad. When it was working, anyway. “There’s no man.”

“Just tell me this one thing. Is he tall?” Morgan lifted a hand to Chuck’s eye level. “Because I’m picturing tall … like a Chuck-bookend? Or if you will, a lofty ying to your yang?”

“There’s no yang, either.” Picking up a pocket watch, he turned it in his hand, not daring to look at Morgan. “Can we please focus on the job? Oh.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a list. “And the rest of the supplies I need?"

“Fine.” Morgan snatched it out of his hand. “Just remember, man. I’m here when you need to talk.” He tipped his nose, reading over the slip of paper. “Flour. Sugar. Coffee. Oh, look at this. You doodled someone’s name in the margin.”

“Give me that!” Chuck lunged, using his long reach to rip it out of his hand. “How can you ….” He scanned the paper quickly and scowled. “There’s nothing written in the margin.”

Morgan did the double guns with his index fingers. “Got ya,” he said, dramatically blowing the faux smoke from the tip of one finger. “Hooboy. You have it baaaad, my friend.”

“Morgan, listen up. There is no man.”

“Sure there isn’t.” When his pal made a grab for the list one more time, Chuck handed it over. It was safe. Nothing on that sheet of paper screamed John Casey.

Or … I’ve had jack rabbit bangtail in several unconventional places over the past forty-eight hours … pootang in the bathtub … rode a bucking mustang ....

A few fingers snapped in front of his face. “Earth to Chuck.”

Chuck frowned and slapped at Morgan’s fingers.

In an effort to curtail the topic, the kid turned over the timepiece, studying the worn silver casing, intricately etched with three elk among trees. “You should try to keep your imagination in check, little buddy. For discussion purposes, I am not,” and he paused to emphasize, doing his best to sound innocently aghast, “sleeping with a tall handsome ma –”

“Nice day, eh, boys.”

“Gah.” Chuck juggled the pocket watch but it slipped through his fingers. With a heroic last second stab in the air, he somehow managed latch onto it before the watch hit the floor. “Crap, crap, crap – got it.”

“Easy, kid. You’re jumpy,” the burly man said, sounding remarkably like someone else he knew. “Didn’t mean to get your dander up - unless you and Morgan here have been robbing trains or rustling cattle in your spare time?” He laughed at his own joke.

Morgan smiled politely.

Chuck stiffened. Okay. Just great. Everyone in town knew they were nerds.

“Sheriff Kemper,” Chuck greeted, baffled by the fact that his voice wobbled. Since when did the law give him cold sweats? “We haven’t knocked off any this week, but check in with us next Monday. We hear the Saguache County Bank is getting the South Pacific payroll tomorrow afternoon.”

“That would interfere with ambushing the Kiowa stage coach on Friday, wouldn’t it, Chuck?” Morgan asked.

“Or was that the day we raid the saloon? I heard there’s a stash of twenty dollar gold pieces in the safe.”

“I like you boys.” Sheriff Kemper chuckled and clapped Chuck on the back.

“Hah.” Chuck grimaced and half stumbled at the hearty clap. Kemper was a large man, having Casey’s bulk, though the sheriff carried his in the middle rather than the chest. He wore a loose black jacket and trousers, quite civilized for this corner of the county. Oh, and lucky for them, the shiny badge came with a sense of humor, apparently.

“Look at that.” Kemper glanced down at the table for a moment, shaking his head at the heap of damaged wares. “Swear this kid could fix a broken heart if he had the right tools, eh, Morgan?”

Chuck pivoted around to face his friend, knowing he would have a comment to add. “I will kill you if you answer that,” the kid mouthed in a hurry.

Morgan rose on his tip toes, preening. “That he can, that he can.” But seeing his friend tense, he redeemed himself in the next breath. “Okay, back to business, Chuck.” Morgan clasped his hands together. “What did you say you needed? Sugar? Or do you already have that at home?”

Chuck glared.

The sheriff missed the furtive exchange. “Well, I’ll let you boys get back to your business.” Kemper wasted no more time, unfurling a posting that had been tucked under his arm. “Got any of those tacks handy, Morgan?”

Morgan scooted around them and walked behind the Post counter, opening and closing drawers. After a little more digging, he flourished four tacks and passed them off the sheriff. “Ah. Don’t tell me,” Morgan said, with some keenness. “Another contribution to the Very Scary and might I add Villainous Wall of Shame?”

Kemper turned to him with a dubious look.

Chuck gave Morgan a prod in the ribs. “Just a little name we have, sir, for the board.” The kid nodded at the knotty pine wall, already partially covered by a half dozen postings, and winced at the sheriff’s blank look. “Um, carry on.”

“We have a card game we play,” Morgan added, “and when one the scurrilous characters is apprehended, that person loses – oof.”

“I’m sure Sheriff Kemper doesn’t want to hear about that,” Chuck mumbled, scratching the back of his head.

“Good thinking.” That time, Morgan got the thunderous back clap. “All right, boys. Here. Take a look at the new addition.” The sheriff glimpsed at the poster, up and down one time, and whistled between his teeth. “Damn, five thousand in gold pieces. Bet you could find something to do with that, eh, gentlemen?”

Chuck glanced at Morgan, already making a rapid inspection of the posting. The shorter man could barely contain his excitement, and he was the first to approach The Wall. “Five thousand,” Morgan said, shifting closer. “I could trade in Petunia – oh, I’d still keep her – but I could get a real horse. One that can actually ride the ridge … without getting, you know, vertigo.”

“Indeed.” Chuck cast an appraising eye at the board, and came up behind Morgan to read over his shoulder.

The usual heading that proclaimed Pinkerton National Detective Agency led the search was something that Chuck had read dozens of time, so he skimmed past that quickly. His eyes jumped to the text that Morgan had already begun reading aloud.

“Listen to this. ‘We will pay five thousand dollars for the arrest and detention of Mr. Gould.’” Morgan cocked his head towards the sheriff. “No first name?”

“Read it, son,” Kemper replied. “It’s only an alias.”

Morgan ran a hand over his beard and continued reading from the post, “’Mr. Gould led a scheme that attempted to defraud United Pacific Railroad, Mr. Jay Connolly, Esq. and property owner, and Black Rock financiers’.” The smaller man deflated with disappointment. “Wow. No bank or train robbery. No shoot out on Main Street. Seems a bit boring, doesn’t it, Chuck?”

The kid started to open his mouth in agreement, but the sheriff cut him off with a snort. He had breath like dead things, so Chuck let one out to combat the horror. “Boring?” Kemper pointed with his chin. “You should keep reading, boy.”

“Oh, goody.” As Morgan continued spouting off about swindles and shady dealings, the kid’s eyes jumped down to the man’s physical description.

At first, he began to absently twiddle his coat button between his fingers, reading silently. Then his face was on fire. Next, he forgot to breathe.

That son of a bitch.

The swell of emotions hit all at once – disgust, anger, despair, and as ever, an overwhelming since of betrayal. Abruptly, Chuck’s gaze shifted to the floor, and in that split second, the breakfast swirled in his stomach.

He was supposed to be smart. How could he be so blind?

“Hey, look at this. I mean, really, how could anyone miss this guy.” Without looking back at his friend, Morgan tapped the poster at the spot where he kept reading. “Six feet four or five inches high, over 200 lbs. – huh, big sucker, right, Chuck? - about 40 years of age, light blue eyes; no beard. He has worked at the trade of –”  
Everything Morgan said after that was lost on him. It was as if another voice in his head finished each word he didn’t want to hear. Liar. Swindler. Murderer.

God. Lover.

He shouldn’t have taken it this far.

With his fists clenched at his sides, Chuck put every ounce of effort into keeping his face controlled. Aloof was good. He could do aloof, couldn’t he? Because now was not the time to give away secrets.

What was the supposed to do? Stand there? Do something, say anything, a tiny annoying voice urged, but he couldn’t punch his way out of the dark cloud of distrust.

He couldn’t move.

His hands shook, so he stuffed them in his pockets. Taking a slow breath – easy, steady - the kid was able to stand straight by leaning against the table’s edge without the other men taking any notice of him.

Chuck stared at the poster, pressing his lips together. Even though he knew it was John Casey they were searching for, the kid waffled. It was not because he … liked him. A lot. No, no, no. He did, but that wasn’t it. Man to man, he owed it to Casey to hear his side before riding back into town and screaming his head off like a little – no. God, no. He wouldn’t do that, either.

Morgan’s voice broke through the fog. Something about a legitimate hanging that had been broken up by the man’s gang, freeing him from the noose. How they had shot the land owner and a sheriff who had attempted to carry out the act of justice –

“Chuck.”

At this, the kid’s head jerked violently. He went pale, realized there was a hand on his shoulder. “Mm?”

Morgan gave him a concerned look and joggled him again. “Are … you okay?”

Chuck bit down on his tongue over the question. He blinked a few times to kill that damn voice, and when he looked down at Morgan, he gave him a tight smile. “Fine. I - I just remembered that I left Jackson outside without any water. I should, uh, get a bucket –”

“Well, I should get back, too.” Kemper huffed, adjusting the bowler hat on his balding head. “Varner’s goats are in Mrs. Peabody’s tomato patch. Can’t miss that bit of excitement.” One last time, he inspected the poster, his eyes glinting as if he welcomed that kind of a challenge. “Five thousand in gold pieces,” he said. “Where are you hiding?”

Chuck busied himself with rearranging his shirt collar. “Uh, Morgan can I have that bucket now?” he asked.

“Sure, buddy.”

Kemper slipped his hand into a licorice jar, and winked at them. “Be good, boys,” they heard as stepped out the door, the shop bells overhead jangling at his departure.

A very peeved Morgan rubbed a hand over his face before heaving a sigh. “Man, did you see that? He took my licorice! Without paying! God, the irony.” When Chuck didn’t answer, Morgan poked him in the stomach. “Buddy?”

“Hm?” Chuck said, jolting.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I … maybe I ate something disagreeable last night.”

Chuck withheld from slapping his own forehead, because he certainly hadn’t meant to blurt that out.

Morgan tilted his head at him, contemplating him long enough to make Chuck want to flinch. “That must be it. Because, I’ve got to tell you,” he said, measuring every word, “you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

-x-

“Miss me, sunshine?” a low voice rumbled from behind the tree.

For the second time that day, Chuck flailed in reaction to someone sneaking up on him. The pocket watch, which likely would need a new winding wheel he had determined in the mist of fiddling with it, went flying through the air.

Casey caught it in one hand and stared down at him. “Scare you?”

“Why do you have to do that?” With an uneasy glance, Chuck held out his hand, waiting for Casey to return the watch. “Yes, you rest happily knowing that you scared the crap out of me,” he muttered, snatching it when Casey dangled it in front of his eyes. “Where did you even come from?”

“Back there.” Casey shrugged, slipping the Colt .45 into his holster. “Had to make sure no one followed you, since you’d never know. Not with all the noise you were making.”

“You … you followed me back here?” Chuck had to crane his neck upward to meet his eyes. After waiting for him, he had settled on the ground with his back against a wide maple, just listening to his breath rasp louder than usual. When that became disconcerting, he had started to work on the watch, since it seemed to calm his nerves.

Casey looked over him carefully and stuck out his hand. “Come on. Let’s go.”

The kid ignored his extended palm. Completely flustered, he didn’t move at first. “I can get up myself,” Chuck answered at last, and in an obvious rebuff, he rose to his feet and brushed off loose grass from his pants without meeting Casey’s hard gaze.

“What?” Casey asked, lifting a brow when Chuck backed up a step. “Something’s got into you.”

Chuck drew in a long breath before replying. The inclination to look down, kick at a few rocks, almost pulled him in, but he stretched to his full height. Planted his feet. If he was going to do this, he would have to meet Casey eye to eye, no matter what. No matter how badly he wanted to lash out. No matter how he wanted to turn and run, get the hell out of there.

“You lied to me,” Chuck said flatly. You’re not the man I hoped you were.

“What the fuck,” Casey said, “are you talking about?”

“I said you lied to me!” The kid watched as the larger man sauntered in a step, then two. He wet his throat to keep his voice from cracking. “You’re … I don’t even know what you are!”

Casey folded his arms over his chest, not taking his eyes off of him. “I … lied … to you.”

“I think you heard me.” Chuck’s heel slid backwards, and he felt the tree behind him. Great. In hindsight, he should’ve planned this a bit better, instead of trapping himself. But there was no backing down. “It was a poster at Morgan’s. It’s you! I know it is. The description, it was all there in print. A tall, large man, your age, and there’s no talking yourself out of light blue eyes. There’s a five thousand dollar reward for the -”

“Jesus. That’s what this is about?” Casey eyed him with some mirth at the thought of it. When Chuck didn’t answer, he took a step forward, forcing the kid to shrink back. “You gonna turn me in, princess?”

“Dammit,” Chuck said softly, scowling. “It said the Pinkerton Agency is looking for you. They’re going to hunt you down. They could kill you.” His fists tightened all over again. “That poster … there were terrible crimes –”

“Yeah, like what?” Casey asked. The stubborn set to the kid’s face wavered just as Casey stepped forward, his boots bumping Chuck’s toes. The move was undeniably intimidating, and without a doubt his intention.

Chuck arched his back and felt the tree trunk jab into his spine. “I read it – all of your swindles, deals –”

“Heh. Not all of them, kid.”

“There were other things … I don’t even understand it all.” With one hand hid low, his fingers dug deeply into the trunk, ostensibly to brace himself. “A hanging, for God sakes! Or should I say, a near hanging? A man … no, you, I know it was you … was rescued right before the platform dropped. People were killed ….”

“Tends to happen in my line of business,” he said, and shrugged again.

“You lied to me!” It was the only thing he could think of to say to that.

And now he felt tears sting his eyes. The kid hastily hid the show of weakness by turning his head and pushing a shaky hand through his hair. “Jesus, why did I trust you?”

In one throbbing heartbeat, Casey crowded a thigh between Chuck’s legs, backing him up squarely to the trunk. Unleashing a brutal yet controlled strength, it silently relayed the message he wasn’t going anywhere until Casey said his piece.

“Horseshit,” Casey replied emphatically.

“That’s – that’s all you can say?!” Chuck darted a look to the side, wondering how he could get out of this. Even the thigh pressed in tight on his balls was not welcome at the moment. He’d have to butter himself to slide out of this mess. “Well, you know what?” Chuck said, fear - and that thigh! - making his voice shake, “I still think you’re a damn liar!”

“Yeah?” Brusquely, Casey leaned in, snagged the front of his shirt. “Want to know what I think?” he asked in that low tone that could smoke Chuck’s insides.

“No!”

“I think you built this fantasy in your head, and you just got slapped with a dose of reality. And now, you don’t know what to do with that, do you, cupcake?”

“Let me go,” Chuck demanded. In the back of his mind he knew it was useless, but he still pushed, trying to worm out of the tight space between Casey and the tree.

Casey rolled his eyes and answered that by putting a hefty forearm over the kid’s chest. “Let me know when you’re done with that so I can finish,” he said, with as much exertion as picking at a hangnail.

“Asshole!” The kid struggled, elbowed, cursed at him. After a good thirty seconds, breathing hard and hating Casey for his bored expression, Chuck sighed and relaxed his muscles. He had to face it. He was dead stuck here until Casey was ready to release him. That wasn’t just yet, according to the handhold on his shirt.

He lifted a brow at Chuck’s sagging composure. “Is now a good time for you, goddess?”

Chuck clenched his teeth, but he shut up.

“Good,” Casey said, and the kid could feel his fingers tightening through the thin cotton fabric of his light brown shirt. “‘Cause you know what else I think? You’ve never had anyone really look at you. Notice you were alive. Until now.”

He mumbled a few words under his breath, so low Chuck only knew he was cursing himself for being that man who finally did.

“Are you about finished?” Chuck stammered. “I’m – you may not realize this, but your thigh is in a very –”

“Shut it. I’m not done.” Casey started shaking his head, digesting the little outburst while he prepared his retort. “And now,” he went on, “for the first time in your life, you’ve got a man to pay attention to you, don’t you? Just by using that pretty little helpless smile –”

“Pretty?” Chuck’s brows shot up. “Hey, I resent the helpless part –”

“- or putting those dark eyes and long lashes to good use, eh?”

“I don’t use anything! It just happened, okay?” Chuck interrupted hastily. The tree was beginning to hurt, or maybe it was being held there and chastened like a naughty puppy. “I wouldn’t even know how to use anything to get anybody!”

Casey’s eyes narrowed. He brought up one hand and touched the kid’s lower lip, barely brushing the edge. “I guess I’ll give you that much. But – now that you do have my attention,” he said, “you conveniently decided to forget how I got here.”

“That’s … not true,” Chuck yelped, even as Casey pressed into him, chest to chest, thigh to – oh, God. Not now. When the contact sent a warm ripple through his limbs, Chuck was reminded how much he hated his body. “I should tell you, I can’t breathe.”

“Heh.” Casey had felt it, the tension, the constriction along his wiry frame. He gave a low laugh at how easy it had been. “I had a bullet hole, kid. I was on the run – hell, I tried to kill you.”

Chuck bristled. “I … need you to back up.”

“When I’m ready.” Casey seemed to have a definite idea of what he wanted to say, and the hold made the kid shirk back automatically. “You thought a white knight had come to rescue you from this place.” His eyes briefly scanned the clearing where they stood before he slanted a challenging look at the kid. “And fuck it to hell, I am going to find out why you’re here.”

Chuck scrunched his fingers into Casey’s coat and gave a push, just on principle. “That’s none of your damn business,” he said hotly, but when Casey didn’t even have the courtesy to shuffle back a half step, he was reminded of Sisyphus and an immense bolder. Except he had never reached the heights to get thrown back. “Move out my way, Casey – oh-kay. Ah - or not.”

“I’m not finished,” Casey responded, “and I’m not moving until I am.” His leg stayed where it was, pressed tightly against a couple things Chuck decided could be breakable if someone tried hard enough.

“Fine. I guess you could call me a captive audience,” Chuck conceded, figuring there was always sarcasm to fall back on when your balls were in a vice.

Casey’s jaw held taut, breathing steadily while he locked eyes, daring Chuck to look away. “I also think that the blind idea of me made you forget who I am,” he said in a cool, level voice. “You made up something special about me in that damn head of yours. Something that made you forget who I am. It was your way of coping … maybe convincing yourself you could be in my bed, without the burden that goes with it.” Casey snorted, not looking away. “We could hold each other together, was that your idea, kid?”

“I told you –” It hurt. It wasn’t the way Casey held him.

“Why would you tell yourself that, I had to ask myself,” Casey said, and he felt one arm around his waist, and felt his warm breath against his neck. “But here’s why. Because a good boy like you doesn’t find what he’s looking for in a man like me.”

“Let. Go.”

A flash of derision crossed Casey’s expression, and as Chuck pushed, his arm tightened enough to make the kid cringe. Nothing else was said for a half minute after that, but then the contempt faded, and there were just shades of blue in his eyes.

He added in a murmur, “Isn’t that right, good boy?”

Chuck’s hand dropped, and feeling the slackening on his shirt, Casey leaned further back and put a hand on the tree over the kid’s head. That was the end of it, Chuck knew.

The kid swallowed and had to let a breath out, relieved at the release of pressure on his family jewels. For his own pride, he gave one more jerk of his arm to free himself. “Stop. Just stop, okay?” He stilled, waiting to see what the larger man would do next. It gave him a minute to sort out the hurt.

Casey stood close, briefly squinting up into the afternoon sky. When he turned back to him, his bright eyes beat the sky’s saturation, hands down. They studied him, sharp and filled with something unreadable.

It shocked him that he didn’t just get on his horse and leave. But no, instead he had to do the one thing that would make the kid stare up at the ceiling late at night, after Casey left the farm for good.

“Jesus,” he whispered, and the larger man shook his head at him, reached out, brushed Chuck’s temple with his thumb, tucking a few curls behind his ear. All that power focused on being gentle, lightly tracing the downward sweep from his cheek, moving to stroke over his hair.

Chuck froze at the soft unexpected touch, not taking his eyes from Casey’s. He licked his lips nervously and stayed sill, waited for him to finish.

“I also think you’re the most goddamn frustrating man that ever walked the earth,” Casey said, watching the path his hand took over Chuck’ skin, his hair. “That’s what I think.”

At that, he abruptly let his hand drop, letting Chuck get some breathing space from the intensity of the argument. Lowering his head, the kid put his hands on his knees and looked down at the grass, trying to shed some of his emotional exhaustion. He tried to suck in air, find equilibrium by putting his sweaty hands on something sturdy. The only thing within reach was the tree.

It hit then. The gnawing in Chuck’s gut became as vicious as a wolf’s sharp teeth. He recognized it for what it was, the guilty realization that he had been dead wrong.

It was the idea of a man willing to look twice at him, willing to touch him in ways that made his flesh warm. It fed the elusive, formless dream in his subconscious.

In front of him, right there, Casey had just kicked a hole in it, filling it like a swamp of sucking mud and dirt. Every word he had said was true.

“Oh, Jesus.” Chuck closed his eyes, tried to even out his breathing. Mortified, as reason returned. He would have tried to stand up, reclaim a little dignity, but he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t stagger and appear as an even bigger idiot. Why couldn’t he get anything right? Can’t breathe ….

“Hey. Hey! Look at me.” The low command made him realize Casey was there with him, a hand on the side of his jaw, dragging his attention up to meet his stern gaze. “You can’t do this to yourself. Stop thinking about it. It’s all right, got that?”

The strong hand on the back of his neck stayed there, massaging, steadying him, giving him back the rhythm of his breath. It went on like that, Casey ruffling his dark hair, helping him get air, breaking the grip of a panic attack.

“Great luck on your part, isn’t it?” Chuck said morosely when he could speak. “You found the only man in Kiowa who swoons like a contessa when suitably motivated.”

The joke fell flat. “How long have you been doing that? And don’t even think of feeding me a lie.”

“Long enough.” Chuck exhaled, letting go of all the anger and shit that had tied his gut. “I have one more thing to say,” he said, slow to rise.

Casey didn’t smile or look remotely amused by what had just happened. “Say it.”

“I owe you an apology, John.” Chuck forced the words past stiff lips, but despite his hurt and shame, he had to get it out.

Casey would not let go of him. He adjusted his grip, the hand on his neck still kneading, raw energy draining. Everything in his eyes told the kid he was weighing the risk, but after a long look, he decided Chuck had gained his balance.

“You … want to apologize …,” Casey said, growing a bit red in the face. “To me.”

“You’re right.” Chuck had to say it, make him understand that. “Everything you just said. I’m a kid from Boston who probably doesn’t belong here. The first time you noticed me, I looked at you and thought what the hell could he possibly want from me? Because look at you, you’re, well ….”

Chuck shook his head helplessly, motioning with one hand at Casey because he had no idea how to end that. There he stood now, the stance of an undaunted warrior. Worn brown duster, holster hung low on his hips, boots that have traveled more places than Chuck could comprehend.

The kid briefly looked down at his own tatty boots. “A lot of times, you’re a mean son of a bitch. Arrogant as hell. Even when I didn’t know about your past, I knew you had been in some pretty dark places.”

His attention flicked up, lingered on Casey’s face. “But even when you were rough, you were gentle with me. Wanted me to take care of myself, when you couldn’t be there to help or protect me. I don’t think you’ve had that before.” He touched his rifle still slung across his back, and lifted his head further, pushing away a few sweaty locks of hair. After all, Casey had to be questioning his manhood after that little spectacle.

“And I almost ruined it,” the kid went on. “So, again, I’m apologizing to you.”

Casey grunted, and Chuck was rewarded with a wry quick curve of his lips. He took Vic’s reins and handed off Jackson’s reins to him. “Save your apologizing for later,” he answered, giving him a wink that told him the type of apologizing he would accept. “We’ve spent too much time out in the open. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

And before Chuck could ask him why he was still here after that, Casey nudged Vic in the ribs and vanished around the bend in the trail, leaving Chuck alone with his thoughts and the sting of regret.

-x-End Chapter Twenty-Three Wings of Grace-x-


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four 

-x-

A low-pitched whistle behind him made the kid sit up straight in his saddle. He listened, hearing the rhythmic clomp of Vic’s hooves on the hard-packed dirt, the shifting and creaking of the harnesses. Another whistle cut through the air, louder, and this time, Chuck turned in his saddle and pulled up on the reins.

“Lost in your world, kid,” Casey said under his breath. “Didn’t you hear me call you?”

“Well, I ….” The kid lifted his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow, having to shake out his hair to unglue it from his head. Noticing Vic had pricked her ears up at her master, he squinted at Casey and said glibly, “I thought you were talking to Vic.” 

“Vic’s whistle doesn’t sound like yours,” Casey remarked, winking. He swung down from the saddle, making what Chuck always thought was an awkward maneuver look graceful. “And she actually listens.”

“Hah. But if you want to compare me to your horse, you can sleep in her stall tonight.”

“We could if you like. But your caterwauling and moanin’ might keep her up all night. Vic needs her beauty rest.”

Since there was no winning this game, Chuck pulled back with a withering look. “What were you trying to tell me?”

“We’re stopping here for a while,” Casey replied, loosening the buckle of his pack. “Hop on down.”

It was perhaps his imagination, but as Casey slung the leather pack over his shoulder, the hard yet curious look he pointed at the kid over the top of the saddle seemed to hold a question. It gave Chuck a prickly feeling along his neck. What was that all about? Or worse yet, how had he screwed up this time?

Restless and uncomfortable, Chuck climbed down and brushed off his jeans. When he glanced over at Casey, he saw the man’s even mood had returned. 

“Over there.” Casey lifted his chin in the direction of a clump of chaparral, thick branches draped over an outcropping of rock. “Get some water.”

Chuck tipped his head to listen. He had been on this part of the trail dozens of times, but cursed himself for never spotting the narrow stream washing over the slippery rocks. The creek ran a bit off the trail, pooling there in an area about ten feet wide before spilling between two rocks on its trek down the ridge. It wasn’t easy to pick out, so there was a slim chance even a more experienced trail hand wouldn’t see it. A greenhorn stood no chance. Luckily, Casey was neither.

“Come on, you two,” Chuck said, and hastily took the reins, leading the horses through knee-high grass to the edge of the water. As Vic and Jackson stepped into the shallow pool, lowering their heads to drink deeply, the kid watched them for a minute. “Like that, hm?” 

Who could blame them? Chuck got down on his haunches at the lip of the pool, bent his head, and scooped up a double handful. He splashed the cold water on his face, sputtering, using the hem of his shirt to wipe at his eyes. The water was intoxicating. That thought made him wonder where Casey was, but there was no sound behind him.

“I think the two of you have the right idea,” the kid said, a slow smile crossing his face. “Why not?” The midafternoon sun had beat down on their backs, making the homebound leg of the trip unbearably hot. Sweat rolled under his chambray shirt, sticking the fabric to his back and chest. The water falling from the rocky overhang was too tempting, and the trickling sound beckoned him in.

“I can at least get my feet wet. Scoot over Jackson.” Hopping on one foot, then on the other, the kid struggled out of his boots and gave them a little toss. He paused long enough to roll up his jeans to his mid-calf, and dipped in a toe. “Ah. Cold, cold …,” he blurted, and bracing himself against the icy water, he stepped in to his ankles. 

Casey, no doubt, would make a remark about taking off his boots and wading in, but Chuck figured he could put up with his pestering if it meant cooling off. Slipping his hat from his head, he gave it a little toss and began to hobble over the tiny rocks to the place where the water fell between two boulders. 

“Ow, ow, ow.” The kid swore softly to himself, hopping when a particularly sharp pebble dug into his heel. “Dang rocks.” 

“Enjoying yourself, pancake?” he heard in a low voice from directly behind his back.

Chuck jumped. He hadn’t even heard a twig snap! Casting a glance past his shoulder, he saw Casey standing at the edge of the creek, hands on hips as he watched him.

“I know, I know – you said get water, you didn’t say get in the water,” the kid explained, dropping low and splashing his face. “But don’t worry, sheriff, I’ll only waste a few minutes here. I know you want to get back home ....” Awkward. “To my home, I mean.”

There was quiet, spanning for a good half minute as the kid waited for Casey to tell him to shut up and hustle. When the larger man didn’t respond, Chuck wiped his face on his sleeve and turned around. 

“Casey?” The kid stood still, forgetting about the water trickling down the line of his jaw, the pebble jabbing his foot. His eyes got wider as he looked over at him. “Okay, I give up. What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Casey asked, leaning back on a rock.

The kid’s brows rose. “Taking off your boots?” 

“That’s something your daddy will be happy to know.” As Casey spoke, he kicked off the other boot and set them down neatly next to the ones Chuck had already shucked off. “That fancy Harvard education didn’t go to waste, eh, school boy?” 

“My daddy would hardly notice – or care,” Chuck grumbled under his breath, and immediately regretted saying that out loud. He covered his mistake inelegantly by scooping some icy water along the back of his neck. 

“Daddy issues?”

“No.” After a second, something occurred to him, and he squinted over at Casey. “Hang on, I never told you which school in Boston I went to. It could’ve been, well ... Boston University or ... maybe Lasell?”

“You’re a terrible liar, kid.” Casey didn’t look at him as he rolled up his jeans in the same manner Chuck had. “And I’m fairly decent at picking out details about people. Occupational habit, you could say. So I’m guessing you went to Harvard.”

The kid didn’t answer at once. Not looking at him, he instead ducked his head and cupped his hands under the trickling water that seeped from the ledge. “I have a rule,” he finally said.

“Yeah?” Casey swished a few toes in the creek. “Like what?” 

“I don’t … talk to anyone – even you, or Morgan for that matter – about … well, my life back east.” He was firm on this one thing, though it was hard not to be slightly chastened under that scrutiny. “You already know I came from Boston and that I have a sister -”

“And crazy ideas about a flying machine that will get you killed someday -”

Chuck shook his head but held his tongue, merely for the reason he had an odd sensation that getting killed would piss off Casey to no end. “Thanks,” he said, and weighing his decision, he teasingly dipped one foot in and sent a small spray of water at the other man. “I didn’t realize my wellbeing was your concern after … well, in a few days from now.” 

Casey grunted, considering the argument, and then flung a splash of water on him. “Someone else will get stuck with cleaning up the body parts, I reckon.” Instead of laughing, as Chuck expected, he turned his head away and got busy cupping water over his face, letting it sluice down his neck, under his shirt, eyes fixed on the creek. 

What was that all about? Chuck thought, looking away in a hurry. So it went on, fumbly and silent between them for a few minutes as they cooled themselves in the water, watching the horses jockey for space to dip their noses before they lumbered to a patch of grass. 

“We can go back if you’d like,” Chuck said, breaking the silence. He smiled while he fidgeted with drying out his sleeve, and took a tentative step over the pebbles. “Is that what you want?”

Casey wrung out a cloth and wiped his face. “Hungry?” he asked without looking up.

“Um.” Chuck’s brow furrowed. With Casey, one never knew how to answer that question. He finally settled on a hesitant, “I guess?”

“Did you bring anything to eat?”

“Well, I did, but your horse ate my lunch – the apple in my coat?”

“The apple. That’s lunch?” Casey tapped the trail dust from his hat and pushed it back over his head. “Come on.”

Chuck expected to hear a low whistle, bringing the horses back – or at least Vic, he thought dejectedly. Jackson would continue to eat, ignoring him until the kid marched up to the obstinate beast and pulled on the reins. 

Rather than give a whistle, however, Casey strolled over to the patch of grass near the trail, and leaned his back against an aspen tree. It irked the kid a bit that he never looked back, somehow just knowing that Chuck would follow on his heels. He wasn’t just a puppy, after all, tugged along on an invisible leash. And does he have to walk that fast?

“Casey, I thought we were going ba – oh.” Fully confused, the protest died off as Chuck caught up to him. He blinked, shifting his focus to a striped blanket, laid out on a level spot in the grass. Dappled with sunlight under the canopy of leaves, a tin box sat at one corner of it next to a canteen. “What’s … what’s that?” he asked.

“Thought a genius would recognize lunch when he saw it.” 

“Lunch? Where did it -”

“Try not to drool on my bedroll, hm?” Casey nodded towards the ground and gave him a gentle elbow to the ribs. “Sit.”

Chuck immediately complied with the order, simply for the reason that he had forgotten until now how famished he was. “What is it?” He started to reach for the latch on the tin box, but held back, glancing up when he realized how rude that would be. “Can I … I mean, do you mind?”

Casey just looked at him with the sphinxlike expression that often put somersaults in Chuck’s belly. “Open it.”

Lifting the napkin, Chuck surveyed the contents and made no attempt to bite back an enormous grin. “Fried chicken … potatoes,” he mumbled happily, lifting and scooting things around to take the full inventory. “Oh, the bread’s still warm. Butter, pickles, oh …oh ho ho ….”

“Gonna eat it or make love to it?” Casey asked, sprawling out next to him on the blanket. “Noises are almost identical, I figure.”

“I thought you liked those sounds,” Chuck said, smiling around the bite of bread he had torn off, already chewing away at it. 

“Yeah?” Casey arched a brow. “Not when you’re stuffing your mouth with that.” 

Feeling his cheeks redden, Chuck tossed a handful of grass at him. “Once again, modesty becomes you,” he said. “Can we just eat? Please?”

“Take what you want, kid.”

The blush deepened. Just perfect. How many times had Casey said those very words to him in the past two days? Was everything between them going to be full of innuendo from now on?

Well, he’d think about those pitfalls later. Aside from the fact that from now on was only about another day or two. Right now, there was food. 

Giving him one last accusatory look for that comment, he reached into the tin box and snatched a chicken leg. “Thank you.”

Casey said nothing. He brushed away the grass from his pants and helped himself to a slice of bread and slab of butter. When he took the canteen, he filled a cup and passed it off to Chuck with a nod. “Drink.”

“This ... this is really great, you know,” Chuck said, taking it from him.

Normally the kid was a comfortable conversationalist, but he was thwarted by two reasons, he realized, as he sat cross legged on the blanket. For one, his stomach insisted that he remain studiously focused on his own meal, and two, he was afraid if he needed to fill the air, he’d say the wrong thing. 

When are you leaving?

Will you ever come by this way again? 

No, he didn’t need to hear the answers. Besides, the air was already slightly stuffy between the two of them after the … misunderstanding that took place earlier. 

Everything was quiet in the small glade except for the faint rush of wind through the leaves. The next few minutes passed while they munched in a companionable silence. Now that was odd, though. He noticed Casey’s hand wrapped around his cup in a tense half curl, his thumb rubbing up and down the side of it. Back and forth. It was obvious, if only to Chuck, that Casey was entrenched in thoughts he would never talk about. 

He should tell him how much this gesture meant. Lifting his cup, Chuck reached over and laid his free hand on Casey’s knee. Impetuously, he gave him a slight squeeze, which he hoped Casey took as a thank you for the meal. 

“Where did you get all of this, anyway?” Chuck asked, applying butter to his third thick slab of bread. 

“The Tabor Grand Hotel.” 

“It’s not really that grand,” Chuck pointed out. “More like mediocre to unexceptional, and that’s on a good day.”

“I noticed,” Casey agreed. “The fleas were packing up to find suitable accommodations.” 

A thought immediately sobered the laugh he nearly let escape. “Wait.” Those expressive brows, his sister had once called two crazy caterpillars, flew up to his hairline. “You went inside? I thought you were trying to stay out of sight. Wasn’t there something about not letting people know that I have -” and he lifted his hands in air quotes, somehow managing to make them sarcastic – “an esteemed guest staying with me for the past week or so?”

“I never said I went in. But I figured they had a dining room.” Casey frowned. “Looked to be the only place in town. I had to take a chance that the food’s somewhat edible.” 

“It is. Mrs. Tabor hired a cook, since she’s not the ... domestic goddess in the kitchen that you are, but she – hey! No fair! Those are good pickles! Don’t thro – ow!” Chuck spread a hand out, palm up, and laughed. “Truce, truce!” 

“Then shut up about my cookin’.”

“Why? Because you’re good at it?”

“Women’s work,” Casey said around a large mouthful of meat.

“Hum. You seem to have improper gender categorization issues. Ellie would sit on me until I screamed Uncle if I said that. Anyway, after the Muskrat Incident last year, Mrs. Tabor decided -”

“You can eat muskrat, you know.”

“Well.” Chuck scratched the back of his head. “This ... wasn’t really a muskrat.”

“Eh?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Casey stopped chewing.

“No, no, no! The new cook took muskrat meatloaf out of the rotation.” Chuck waved a hand at the spread. “It’s good,” he said, and picking through the box, he snuck a chicken wing and waved it under Casey’s nose. “Do you mind? Oh. And answer this. If no one was supposed to see you, how did you get the lunch?” 

“Take it.” Pushing the tin towards him, Casey leaned back on his elbows and spread out on the blanket. “I’m done. You keep filling those hollow legs.”

“You didn’t answer the question,” Chuck said before taking a bite. 

Casey shrugged, crossing his ankles as he leaned back. “I paid a kid two bits to fetch it for me.” 

“A quarter?” Chuck nearly sent the chicken wing flying. “I would’ve done it for a quarter!”

“Weren’t you busy yammering with that friend of yours?” Casey looked down at his feet and flicked away an ant before it reached his ankle. “Didn’t think Moron would ever shut up about that damn woman he wants to get in the hay.”

“He never said it that way,” Chuck said, peering down at their bare feet in a line, now that he had decided to flop down next to him. “Morgan would be a gentleman about it. He wants to court her properly. Not just get her – holy shit! Shit shit shit!”

“Get some rat stuck in your teeth?” 

“You big jerk! I don’t believe you, Casey! How could you do that?!”

“Do what?” Casey asked.

“You followed me?” Hell, just the thought of him sneaking like that made Chuck’s nerves spring to life. “How could you have heard all of that? The only way is if you were there – and that means you spied on me!”

“Yeah, so what. I followed you.” Casey gave him a bland look, completely unrepentant. “What’s the big deal?”

The soft place on the blanket grew rather frosty. “You – I don’t believe you!” Chuck sat up straight and turned to him, wounded anger filling his eyes. “You didn’t trust me, even after all of this? You thought I lied to you? Did you really think I would run to straight to Morgan and tell him?!”

“Before you get up on your hind legs and bark at me, puppy, maybe you should hear me out.”

Chuck tensed at that. Did Casey really think the way to assuage him was to compare him to an innocuous yapping dog? 

“Seems I can’t even be trusted, is that it? I’m not your property, you know!” He had to get up, if only for the reason it would make Casey have to crane his neck to look at him, even if only to see his pissed off face. 

Except Casey anticipated his little power play move. “Sit your ass down,” he said, and a strong hand on the kid’s forearm made sure he stayed planted there on the blanket. 

“Bastard,” Chuck breathed. He didn’t dare try to get up again, though he wanted to. The resentment was heavy, so when Casey relaxed, the kid jerked his arm away. He needed a little space, some breathing room without touching. Even someone as bullheaded as Casey sensed it, because he didn’t try to take his arm again.

Chuck frowned, staring with hurt into the meadow that rolled beneath the ridge. “I could’ve done it if I wanted to,” he said at length, still not meeting his eyes. “But I gave you my word earlier today, and that should’ve been good enough for you. Jesus, Casey. I wasn’t going to tell Morgan about you.” He darted a look to the side while he fidgeted with the hem of his loose shirt, hand tightening to channel his anger. “Or … us.”

He turned to see Casey giving him an exasperated look. His lover apparently didn’t find this little outburst all that amusing. “If I didn’t trust you,” Casey said, his voice deceptively even, “do you think I would’ve let you go into town in the first place? Let you waltz into that store on your own? You could’ve told them about me, but I trusted that you wouldn’t.”

Hugging his knees, the kid flung a chicken bone into the tall grass. “You didn’t let me do anything. I’m a grown man. I can … waltz wherever I want!” It was as pathetic as a comeback could be, he knew, but it was the one part of Casey’s point that he could argue. 

Casey stayed quiet, watching Chuck fold and unfold his arms.

After a brittle pause, Chuck turned away suddenly, his brows drawing down over his dark eyes. “All right. I guess I have to concede that you might have a valid point there. It still doesn’t explain why you followed me – and it doesn’t make it okay, for that matter.” The kid put his elbows on his knees, chin sunk into his locked hands. “So why did you?”

“Logic,” Casey answered, and he tossed a small pebble that had been digging into his back. His jaw stiffened, which Chuck had determined a few days ago was his signal to drop it. 

Well, no way was he ready to do that. 

Chuck shifted his knee to the side, allowing it to joggle one of Casey’s legs, getting his attention. “This is one of those times when elaboration would be required. And appreciated,” he added quickly.

Casey ran a hand along the side of his neck, thinking, before he stretched one leg along Chuck’s. “You said you go into town once a week, right?”

“Yes,” the kid replied cautiously. “What does that have to do with it?”

“And I suppose you always meet up with your friend – this Morgan character – and get caught up on the news? Chatter like two school girls who kissed a boy for the first time?”

“I’m saying yes, that is what happens,” the kid countered, giving Casey’s shoulder a light shove, “but only to the first part. Not the chattering part.”

Casey grunted, unimpressed with the argument. “And if there was a man that others were looking for, and they had been snooping around town trying to find him ... or asking questions, I supposed this would be news to your friend? Something he would blurt out the moment he laid eyes on you?”

Now that he was cornered and knew exactly where this was going, Chuck had to roll his eyes at Casey’s naiveté. “You don’t know Morgan,” he said, picking up his third or fourth piece of chicken. “If a posse came into town looking for someone, that’s not at all how it would’ve happened.”

“Hm?”

“No,” Chuck said, emphasized with another tap on his leg. “He would’ve ridden out to the farm to tell me, gathered up my buckshot rifle and our slingshots -”

“You have a ... slingshot?” Casey asked, arching a brow.

“Well.” Chuck grimaced in mild discomfort. “It’s mostly for Tip the Tin Can tournaments with Morgan when we – you know, that’s not relevant.” He sighed at Casey’s growing smirk. “Anywaaay, we would’ve loaded up Jackson and Petunia – that’s Morgan’s horse -” 

“’Cause that’s relevant -”

“And headed out with the search party to find … well, you.”

Casey lowered the canteen, obviously repressing a smile as he eyed him. “You and that kid don’t strike me as the vigilante lynch mob types.”

“Oh, we’re not,” Chuck said, waving him off. “We just like the, uh, thrill of the moment. You know, when the Sheriff Kemper gathers his men together in front of the store? Rifles and ... maybe a noose? That’s about it -” Stopping briefly to clear his throat, the kid added in a embarrassed mumble, “Except for the pie.”

“Mm?”

“You heard me,” Chuck said. “Pie.” 

“There’s ... pie at these events?”

“Mrs. Sanderson. The one who made this lunch – the cook at the Grand Tabor?”

“Yeah, the unGrand, I get it. What’s your point?”

“She – well, it’s kind of like this.” Chuck snuck a glimpse at Casey before needing to look down at his hands. “She makes … pie for the men before they hit the trail, and -”

The explanation was cut short by the rumble of low laughter. “So, let me get this straight,” Casey said, biting down on his lip. “You joined the armed band of misfits – for pie?”

Chuck threw the napkin at his face and lowered his eyes, abashed. “Fine. But it’s good pie.”

“But you never go with them?”

“Who, us?” Chuck scrubbed a hand through his hair, avoiding the amused gleam of his eyes. “Um, no. There’s the mercantile, my farm … and Jackson hates long rides on the trail, any walking really, and Petunia – well, she gets the heaves around switch grass.” 

Casey snorted, making him look over. “Really, kid?” he said. “Did it ever occur to you two geniuses that the horses have you trained?”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d stop laughing,” Chuck told him, tearing off a piece from the loaf of bread. He thought about it, and then lobbed it at Casey’s ear. It had little effect on the snickering. “It’s an allergy! Morgan says she has overactive nasal passages. Besides,” he faltered, desperately needing to change the subject, “you haven’t explained everything.”

“Yeah, like what,” Casey asked, still laughing and grinning over at him.

“Okay, like this, Mister Unsympathetic to the Woes of Equine Disorders.” The kid looked over from the remaining pickle he was in the process of snatching, just to give him the stink-eye. “The shop bells.”

“Shop bells?”

“Morgan has them.” When Casey gave him a questioning look, Chuck tilted his head and went on to explain, “Over the door? They jingle when a customer comes in. That was how we knew Kemper was there – why didn’t we hear shop bells? Where were you?”

“In back.” 

 

“Obviously,” Chuck said, and he slumped a bit on the soft blanket, getting more comfortable. “How did you get in?”

Casey put one big hand on the kid’s kneecap and gave it a playful shake. “There’s always a back entrance, boyo. Makes life more fun that way, eh?” 

The kid’s attention flicked over to him just long enough to verify a hunch. Yep, that’s exactly what the giant asshole meant. “Admit it,” Chuck said. “You like watching me flounder and turn red.”

“You shouldn’t make it so much fun, pancake.” Another squeeze, this one sliding down to his inner thigh in that proprietary, its mine way, had the kid jolting.

Chuck captured his long fingers, squeezed, and handed them back to the now- perturbed owner. “You seem to have misplaced these,” he grumbled, deciding it would be rude to lick his fingers in front of Casey, so he went ahead and did it. “That’s how you snuck in? You came in through the storeroom?”

Casey lifted a shoulder, since it wasn’t worthy of a reply. “There was one more thing,” he said, and cupping the kid’s jaw, he steered his face around to peer at him. “Huh.”

The hand to his jaw held tight, controlling him, allowing Chuck only to lock his jaw and stare into his blue eyes. “What … what is it?” he managed between his teeth. “Can you - hey, let … go.”

Casey ignored him. His fingers clamped down, holding him in place, even when Chuck winced. The larger man pretended to study his face, and made a point of turning Chuck’s head a few inches to the right, and then to the left. 

“I’ll be damned,” he said under his breath. “It is there.”

Chuck wrinkled his nose and tried to pull back. No luck there. “Do you mind explaining what you’re doing?”

“You’re idiot friend, Morgan. He said he could see it.” Casey squeezed in lightly with his fingertips, and a grin began to twist the corner of his lip. “Though, I do have to ask: what the hell is a Gillolly?”

“Gill – oh.” It took some effort, what with the grip on his jaw, but Chuck managed to gape. “Oh my God oh my God,” he stammered, and desperate, he made an attempt to free his chin. When that turned out badly, he decided his next best bet was to close his eyes, anything to block out the roguish smile Casey had pointed at him. “You ... heard that?”

“Something about buttering your beans?”

“Oh God.”

Casey chuckled softly. “Yeah, I heard it. I had to see the glow for myself, though.” There was a lingering pause where Chuck kept his eyes squeezed shut. “He’s right. It’s there.”

“Are you done yet? Tormenting me?” He scrunched his face, since the sour look had to be accomplished without opening his eyes. “And there’s no glow. Nada. Nothing. No radiance. It’s just a … skin condition. It makes me look red when I’m out in the sun, okay?”

The touch there startled him, feeling the scoffing noise half muffled against his neck. At the scrape of his stubble, Chuck’s jaw tightened so hard he thought his teeth would fall out. He expected Casey run his lips over the chafed area, smoothing the sensitive skin while he held him there. What he did not expect was the larger man to loosen his fingers, or the feel of his thumb running over his lips, a silent urging for Chuck to part them. 

He did it automatically, but only to try and catch a finger in his teeth. Casey deserved a good bite right now. 

“So, can you let me go?” Chuck asked, opening one eye to a slit, hoping Casey had finally dropped the smile. He felt relief that the smirk was gone, replaced by a more serious expression. Casey’s hand passed over his hair, a few curls still damp from splashing himself, and Chuck had a slow tickling stir in his belly that he was missing the meaning behind his countenance. 

“When I’m ready,” Casey answered. “I’ll let you know when that is, eh?” He leaned forward then, caught Chuck’s lips before he could react, maybe draw back. He kissed him hard, his tongue pressing, persuading him to open up. When he did – God, he couldn’t help it - Casey fisted a hand in his hair, gripping him so he couldn’t move, there was no fighting the sure knowledge of what would get him hard in no time. The kid felt his vitals coiling, and he started to arch into him ... until he realized one thing. 

This. That one of them was freaking insane if he thought for a minute ...! 

My God, where did this come from? When it hit him, Chuck flailed a hand out that landed on a broad chest, hard as stone. But warm. He already loved the steady feel of that, even touching him through the thin fabric of his cotton shirt.

The kid was gasping when Casey at last pulled back. Their faces were still close, Chuck’s vision taken over by sky blue eyes, and somehow during the kiss, Casey had sprawled over him, throwing a thigh over his legs.

And when his stomach muscles rubbed up against something that was as hard as the tin pail but most definitely not the tin pail, the kid jerked back. He didn’t think …. 

Now? Here?

No way. 

Chuck’s eyes popped open and his fingers uncurled from the shirt. When had he even done that? Grabbed onto him? He quickly searched Casey’s face – the heavy lidded expression, lips twitching into a faint smile - confirming what he already knew.

Yep, that’s exactly what he thinks. 

“No, no, no, no.” The realization sent Chuck backwards like the lick of a leather whip. “You are not serious,” he insisted, scooting away even further. “Here? Outside? No, there will be no dispensing of the glow out here, buster.” 

Casey lay sprawled, propped up on one elbow as he judged reaction. “I picked this spot because I can keep an eye peeled up and down the trail if anyone’s coming – and because it’s secluded.”

Chuck blinked at him. “Hold on. You picked this spot so that you could have an afternoon of -”

“Bean butterin’?” Casey rolled his eyes at Morgan’s nomenclature. “Nah,” he answered. “I thought it’d be smart, though, considering who may be looking for me.” Giving a coaxing smile, he reached out a hand to rest it on Chuck’s thigh. “Just dumb luck that it happens to work in our favor.”

“In – in whose favor?”

Though he probably deserved a better answer, the one he got was that hand sliding over his crotch, palm cupping. “Thought so,” Casey said succinctly, as if he had earned the spoils of war. He patted the blanket. “Why don’t you move over here? I can take care of that.”

The kid could feel his jaw swinging open like a barn door. “Did you just – you can’t just grab whenever you – my - it isn’t just there for hayseed hand fishing, you know!”

“Eh?”

The kid shook his head and discreetly eased backwards. “Don’t you know it’s not polite to show affection in public?” 

“Yeah?” Casey patted the blanket a little more adamantly. “When you move over here, kid, I’ll show you about a half a dozen more things that are impolite anywhere.” 

“Nuh-uh.” Chuck held up a palm flat in the air. “Keep your hands to yourself.”

His reluctance made Casey pull up short. “You want to, don’t ya?” His eyes went lower. “Felt like it, anyway,” he added in a mutter.

“I … er.” Okay why lie about it? “Yes … I do …of course … but, that part of me is not thinking rationally at the moment, okay?” As a consolation prize, he brushed his bare foot over Casey’s ankle. “Where did you learn to kiss like that, anyway? Wait. Don’t answer that.”

Casey snorted, since he had no intention of doing so. The kid looked to the side to find the larger man studying him with narrowed eyes, debating whether to push getting his itch scratched. He must’ve decided to give it a rest, because after a minute or two, he yawned and stretched his legs, laying his head in the crook of his forearm. 

A nap under the tree? Lying full length against Casey’s pleasingly muscular body? Chuck could think of worse things. He set aside the tin pail and scooted next to him, getting down on his back, one hand lying loosely on Casey’s knee.

“This is nice,” the kid said, his suddenly sleepy glance going from his hand to Casey’s profile. “I like you better when you’re not helping yourself to free handouts – in public.”

“Mm.” 

Just thinking of lying with him, shedding some of the emotional and physical weariness of the day, made Chuck close his eyes. Feeling the heat of the afternoon on his skin, his full belly, the kid wondered when he had last gotten a decent night’s sleep. The first few nights with Casey in his bed kept him too nervous to sleep, and the last few – well, they kept him too preoccupied. 

As he thought about that brand of preoccupation, it made his toes curl. Not acting on the impulse to touch him, the kid listened to Casey’s even breathing, closed his eyes, feeling everything around him unwinding ….

 

“Squirrel.”

Chuck started at the sound next to his ear. “Um?” he asked, hearing his voice scratchy with sleep. His arm had ended up thrown over his eyes, and he had to peek out from under it to slant a look at Casey. “Wha -?” 

“Squirrel,” Casey said, sounding much more awake. “Or I should say two squirrels, up over our heads. In the branches.”

“And this is important because?” Chuck mumbled, shifting his arm to block the annoyance of sunlight.

“Dinner. I know it’s the last thing you’re thinking of, but dinner is up that tree.” There was a sharp-elbowed jab at his side. “You’ll be thanking me around supper time tonight.”

“A squirrel?” Lifting his head, Chuck gave him a wary look. “They’re cute. Brown, furry – how can you even think of -”

“They also go well with gravy, and some bread to mop up the morsels.” Rising, Casey ran a hand through his hair, his gaze traveling up the trunk to the wide expanse of branches. “Get up. You have to see how it’s done.”

“But … they’re little bodies are so – I don’t know – compact? Okay, okay – I’m getting up – enough with the big toe in my ribs, all right?” 

“If you bring me my pack, we might have something for dinner besides your usual fare. It’s over there, get it.” Casey pointed without taking his eyes off the upper limbs. “Furry little bastards.”

Seeing that Casey had a target in his sights, and there was no talking him down, Chuck obediently grabbed the pack and strolled over to the base of the tree. “I … don’t see them.” He steadied himself with a hand on the tree trunk and looked up among the silver-dollar sized leaves. “Are you sure? Brownish-red? Cute helpless faces thinking why me?”

He did not reply, but the kid felt Casey come up from behind. It surprised him, a moment later, when the larger man stepped in even closer, chest to back, lining up his bare feet on the outside of Chuck’s. Without a word, Casey wrapped an arm around the kid’s waist and flexed it tightly, pulling Chuck deeper into him. His body rippled. Suddenly he was surrounded by him, enveloped beneath the hold of his, the scent of his hair, his skin. 

“Yeah, keep looking,” he said in a low voice, lips brushing the sensitive edge of the kid’s ear. As he wondered why Casey had not reached for his pack, Chuck felt him shift, pushing the slope of his hard chest against his back, a hip brushing his. Casey’s other hand slid down his arm, and he pressed his hand to the bark of the tree. Don’t even think of leaving, the move said.

Chuck turned his head, eyes rising in a question, and he clumsily bumped his cheek against Casey’s chin. Getting knocked in the jaw didn’t seem to take Casey off his game, however. He skirted the awkwardness by lowering his lips to the side of the kid’s neck, dropping a warm kiss there. 

“Casey?” Before complete idiocy took over, the kid inched closer to the tree, getting some breathing space away from that hard long ... did he say hard? body at his back. “John – what’re you – uh -”

As an answer, Casey’s lips whispered along the back of his neck, warm and moist. The hand around his waist fell lower, splayed over his abdomen. “Stay here, brown eyes,” he murmured. “Don’t turn around. Keep your hands right there on the trunk.” He said it as an order, quietly daring him to talk back. “Yeah, good,” he went on when he felt Chuck’s muscles go lax. “Don’t move them.”

The kid swallowed hard, focusing on the silvery-gray bark two inches in front of his nose. His brain scrambled for the appropriate response, but what in the world did one say with a stiff dick trapped in jeans pressing to his ass? 

His brain cells rallied. Some. “There … there aren’t any squirrels up in that tree, are there?”

The lips pressed to his neck curved into a smile. “Nothing gets by you, kid.”

“You didn’t … answer my question.” Chuck had to stop and suck in a breath, tipping his head just slightly while Casey’s teeth gently nibbled over his collar. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Collecting your appreciation for this fine lunch here.” He took a handful of Chuck’s shirt and pulled it to the side, giving himself more access to the bare skin at his shoulder. His voice became solemn, continuing in a throaty rumble that nearly made it sound like a question. “You said … you wanted to.”

“I do – but h-here?” Chuck shut his eyes, feeling Casey’s lips now sucking, gliding over the line of bone at his shoulder. “I mean … what if somebody comes up the trail?”

“Then you better let me fuck you with no argument to slow us down,” Casey growled against a mess of curls at his neck. He rucked up the kid’s shirt over his abdomen, simply slid his hand down. First he roamed inside the waistband, and changing direction, slipped over the outside of his pants. Getting a hand over him, cupping, fingers lightly clenching.

“John – please.” Please what? God, they both knew that could be taken several ways. Even Chuck was a bit flummoxed by what he meant.

But not the least bit confused, Casey’s hand went down, sliding over the front of his jeans, squeezing Chuck hard over the impression of his cock. 

There was no secret between them any longer. “Mm. Hard as a rock, kid.”

“Oh, hell,” Chuck whispered. Then he gave up on talking. He had to close his eyes, let a shiver work through him, feeling surrender as Casey’s lips drew over his skin, mouthing his neck. 

“Like the feel of you,” Casey went on, biting lightly on his shoulder, hand tracing over his bicep. “All wiry, lean … tight.”

The kid’s fingers dug into the bark when he felt his knees buckle. “I … doing things like this are hard for me.”

The strong arm around his middle tugged, steered his ass between Casey’s hips. “Feel that?” 

“Y-yes.” God, yes.

“That’s the only thing hard about what I’m going do to you.” A hand ran over his backside, taking hold of one buttock. “The rest is easy, kid,” Casey said. “You just need to hang on for it.”

And without warning, he pressed himself against him, making him feel the hardness under his jeans. 

Not thinking, not worrying about being watched, Chuck shockingly found himself doing what came instinctively, emulating the compulsion of animals in the forest - which he figured for this moment, they were. Arching his hips, he strained backwards, just slightly grinding back and forth into him....

“Oh,” the kid breathed, mind scattering at the touch of warm lips on his throat. “That’s ....”

“Yeah? Like that?” Casey’s voice soothed, sliding over his skin like hot oil, urging him to let go and do it again. “Want to know what you remind me of?”

Chuck reflexively clenched into the bark, but God, he only used the grip to push back. The move shifted Casey’s cock along his crease, making Chuck intake a quick breath, bow his head, leaving the back of his neck tender and exposed.

“Easy, kid. Need to get your clothes off first.” Casey leaned into him while a hand slid down to the first button of his jeans, a few nimble fingers taking care of that nuisance. “Mm ... a colt.”

One of Chuck’s hands fell to the arm wrapped around his midsection, just as Casey buried his face at his nape, his nose in the soft line of curls at his collar. “I … - what?” the kid mumbled, finally realizing that Casey had said … something.

“That’s what you are.”

“I have n-no idea what you’re talking about.” Chuck wet his dry lips, all at once dry. He didn’t. Couldn’t think. The hot flood of feeling through him had nothing to do with the midafternoon sun slanting through the leaves. Everything to do with the bear of a man behind him, strong arms around him. A hand held Chuck’s palm flat against the tree, the other unlatched his buttons, one by one. 

“Ever have to train a colt?” Casey asked. Knowing the answer, he dropped a hand to cup Chuck’s balls, now free of the dreaded jeans, rub his thumb around the ridge of his cock. “No, you haven’t. So I’ll tell you. You want to hear it?”

“God … Casey.”

Apparently, that meant yes. Chuck suddenly had no freedom of movement, Casey’s entire body pressed to his. The pants were being shuffled down to his knees. 

“They’re half edginess and half eagerness,” Casey continued quietly, lips moving to the back of Chuck’s head, tousling his wild curls. “They’re just a barrel of constant movement. Running back and forth … up and down along that fence …. Do anything to get to the other side of it, see what that’s like.” When the jeans fell to his ankles, Casey closed his hand around Chuck’s cock, gave it a little Welcome to the Great Outdoors pull. “All fractious and untamed. Stubborn ….”

“L-like me.” The kid squeezed his eyes shut, his dick rising at the touch, balls drawing up. 

Casey gave another long stroke over his erection before moving his hand back to his lower stomach. “You know how you take care of that?” he asked, long fingers idly caressing his abs. 

“No.” Chuck hitched, embarrassed to show that he was ticklish there.

“You soothe ‘em, kid. Like this.” Tracing his shoulder with his lips, leaving a few soft licks, Casey started on the buttons of his shirt. “Give ‘em sweet touches, rub their back, their thighs.” As he spoke in that rough voice, another button popped free. “They’ll stop bucking and fighting ….”

“I … don’t fight,” Chuck argued, realizing too late how much trouble that had earned him recently.

“And eventually, that colt will follow the hand that leads it.” In between the kisses at the slope of the kid’s neck, Casey added in a murmur, “They become just willing to please. Lift a leg, so I can get the pants off.”

Chuck swallowed, lifting one leg and then the other. 

Casey swept a hand down the plane of his back, kneading, going to the dip of his lower spine. “Like that?”

“Y-yes.” Behind him, the kid felt a knee wedge in between his legs, gently knocking his own knees out wider, spreading his stance. It wasn’t until then that he realized his shirt had flapped open, but he knew it now, heightened by the hand that roved over his chest. Fingers smoothed over his pecs, touching, holding him against him. He heard the unfastening of a belt, the rustling of fabric as Casey worked on his own buttons, lowering his jeans. 

Doing something so brash and terrifying had to be the same as flying, he thought, nerves and adrenaline poking holes in his resolve. It dazed him that he was so easily persuaded to do this in broad daylight. Willingly, Casey had said. Was he?

He was not a colt. No, he wasn’t going to just follow that hand wherever it took him. 

Just today … he would. 

That settled, he tilted his head to the side, letting Casey tease the bone of his jaw. 

“Jesus, John ....” What are you doing with me? No one can do this. 

Why you?

Teeth grazing his earlobe, Casey then gave a few lazy kisses along his nape until Chuck felt a quiver in his muscles. It made the kid remember how Casey had explored his body by taste instead of sight two nights ago. 

“Let me show you why I really had you bring the pack.” It was Casey’s stay-there-because-I’m-going-to-fuck-you-now voice. 

The second or two that it took him to figure it out was just long enough to make his blush ignite. “You … you planned that?” 

His answer was a hand on his ass, the sharp awareness of something slippery trailing down into his crease. A big palm had dipped to grip his buttock and open him up further. 

“I like to be prepared, kid. Any scenario.” Two fingers, so slick and hot, slid in – carefully, deliberately - each prod and withdrawal showing that Casey already knew how to stroke and hold him …. Exactly what he liked.

“God ….” As Chuck gasped it, Casey prodded his opening and growled with staunch satisfaction. There was a push, slow and easy, and getting little resistance, he replaced the fingers with the broad head of his cock. “G – John.”

Setting his teeth along his shoulder, Casey kept sliding, little by little, testing, making him ready for the full size of him. “Don’t worry, kid.” 

“Wor – I’m not worried!” 

“I’m not talking about this, brown eyes,” he said in a hushed tone, brushing his lips over his damp temple. Casey puckered to leave a kiss there, but Chuck lurched just as the broad head pushed against a ring of muscles. “I meant the squirrels.”

“… oh hell. But - the sq-squirrels?”

“I wasn’t going to shoot them.” Slowing, letting Chuck get used to him, Casey arched his hips a bit, the tight flex of his buttocks and thighs taking him deeper. He threaded his fingers through Chuck’s splayed hand, still hanging on tight to the trunk. “And I don’t want you to worry about dinner, pancake,” he explained in that soft burr that had Chuck’s insides smoldering. “It’s in another tin pale. Bought that from the Hotel, too.” As an afterthought, he said, “Blind luck, but I also got the pie.”

Jutting his hips, he thrust gradually, easily, all the way in, not stopping until he wrenched a moan from the kid. Not the hard and fast ramming from behind this time, though Chuck knew now how good it felt. God, or how good this felt. Precisely what he was doing now. Moving into him in an unhurried, easy rocking motion, one hand drifted lower, and he pumped him in his grip. Chuck already felt like he was in the throes of an orgasm, quivering, rocking back on him. He wanted to give it all to him.

“Like that, too?”

“Mmng.” There was friction, deep friction. That was the only thing Chuck could comprehend. 

“Taking good care of you, eh?” Casey said. Stroking, still stroking up and down the length of him, not letting go. “Aren’t I, kid?”

-x-

He was tied to a chair. At his ankle. A thin rope but impossible to break. He kicked, lashing out with a foot, but his bones felt sluggish. Movement was heavy, like gallons of water churned over him. 

The dulcimer was curled between his fingers. He tried to move them, tried to think how Aunt Julia showed him to find the chord. Left hand, resting on the back of the soundboard, fingers relaxed. That was it, right? Then again, his hands weren’t working as they should. 

Without touching the strings, however, without being able to move, there was music. He heard it. A voice, clear and low.

 

That ... was not Aunt Julia.

More awake now, the song skittered through his consciousness, tugging him with two strong hands out of the dream. They sent him to a placed where leaves and branches over him rustled and swayed, the rippling effect of a lover’s muscles held the memory of two men, an impression of the past. 

Wheat-colored grass, flowing, bending, the meandering water falling from the outcropping of rocks. The sounds around him melded, but they didn’t drown out the voice.

 

When the morn approaches, my choice is made

Two boots on the dusty road, two eyes on the sun

My journey will take me away from you, my love

Without thought or care for your joy

Can you dare to ever forgive me? 

 

Chuck’s lashes fluttered, and he balled up a fist, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His cheek rested on something firm and warm. “What … what was that?”  
“Hm?” he heard in a deep rumble over his head.

“What are you doing?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” Casey answered, tipping his chin to look down at the ruffled head in the crook of his shoulder. “You didn’t seem to have a problem with it, though.”

Being on his side, Chuck stretched his calf over Casey’s legs, running it on top of his jeans and enjoying the feel of those iron-like thighs. He remembered now where they were, blurry images coming into focus. 

When they had finished … squirrel hunting, the men had laid down on the blanket, arms and legs tangled. Chuck had insisted that they both put their pants on at least, a directive that Casey – surprisingly – followed. 

Both of them still bare chested, Casey then molded him protectively into the curve of his body, holding him securely about the waist. The last thing Chuck remembered was an arm sliding under his head, and brushing his lips on the smooth underside of Casey’s bicep. 

Until the ... song? or whatever it was sprung awake within his dreams.

The kid lifted his head and pushed a few wayward curls from his eyes. “You were singing … something. I heard it.”

“Just trying wake you from the dead,” Casey said, playing with a curl between finger and thumb. “Getting late in the afternoon. We should think about getting back ... soon.” 

Had he sounded wistful when he said it? Logic told the kid that that was an emotion, and therefore he had to have imagined it. But there was something deeper there, and the note made Chuck’s heart tumble. 

Bravely, he rested his chin on the slope of one of Casey’s pecs. “That was the song,” he told him. “The one that you made me sing? You said there was another verse.”

“And I was right, wasn’t I?”

“And that’s what you were singing. Right now, I heard it.”

“Thought you’d prefer that to waking you up in some other way,” Casey said, his attention lingering on the kid’s mouth, down to the curve his chest. “But if you’d like -”

“Oh, no – you’re not getting out of it that easily.” Chuck wrapped his fingers around one of Casey’s already roving hands, and his dark eyes fastened on Casey’s face. “I want to hear it. From you, John, exactly as you did a minute ago. I want to hear the rest of it.”

There was wavering for a long minute while Casey looked up at the leaves and dragged a hand through his hair. When Chuck tapped his cheek to show him a grin, Casey shot him a narrow look. “I hate that thing.”

“That’s a lie,” Chuck said. Purposely, his grin widened.

Casey scrubbed a hand over his face and huffed. “Put your head down,” he muttered at last. “The way it was before. Don’t want you looking at me like that.”

“And if I do it?” Chuck asked. “If I put my head down?”

“Fine – I’ll do it.” Since the kid was still flashing the man-killer grin, Casey took hold of his head and pressed it down on his chest for him. “But you have to stay there.”

“Deal,” Chuck said, nestling his cheek into the perfect spot. “How does the next verse go? I don’t remember ….”

Being cornered didn’t suit him, and mindful that the kid had him trapped, Casey cursed a blue streak under his breath. That made Chuck smile, because for once, he had left Casey with discomfort and hesitation. 

“Well. If I recall …,” Casey said, “it’s something like this ….” 

The rich baritone started so low, so gingerly, that even with his cheek on Casey’s chest, hearing the thump of his heartbeat, Chuck had to strain to hear the words. 

Do not dream to shed a tear for me

This faithless soul doesn’t deserve

A heart that’s pure, a soul that trusts

Blow a kiss up on the wind, taken upon the leaves

Then whisper a prayer to send me on my way 

 

I love you ... Coward. 

He’s telling him he’s leaving. The only way he could. It’s going to happen tomorrow.

Chuck kept his head down, let the last notes rise to the leaves, slowly dwindling. His eyes now closed, he stayed still, inhaled the scent of him. Couldn’t they stay like this? Lazily, he brushed a few fingers over Casey’s skin, wondering how he could pack this memory away tightly for - 

“There. Fuck it. Happy now?”

“Ho – what?” 

“You heard me,” Casey said. “I’m done.”

When the kid opened his eyes and tilted his gaze upward, Casey was regarding him with an odd expression. What was it now? Well, the last thing Chuck wanted to do was pursue what was going on behind those bright eyes studying him. 

“I … liked it. Except for one thing.” He deflected the look by skimming a hand over Casey’s smooth stomach, tracing small circles down to his belly button. “I don’t recall my aunt teaching me that last line. ‘F’ – it?”

Casey’s look told him he didn’t see the humor. “Now you have to do something for me,” he said after a minute. For some reason, his face became serious, and he brought a hand to Chuck’s jaw, his thumb following a path along the line of his cheek bone. His grip tightened. “I want you to answer a question for me.”

“A – a question?” Not what he expected him to say, not when he started off like that. Still, Chuck couldn’t help the instinctive balk, startled by the change in his demeanor. The odd request baffled him. The firm hold forced him to remain still. “What is it?” They both knew how gracelessly he had avoided giving him a direct reply. Not until I hear it.

“I want a straight answer, kid.” Chuck felt it, there was a steady throb through his hand. Casey kept his palm there, fingers clenched, cradling his jaw with no intention of letting go. He dared Chuck to even try to pull back. “Now, preferably.”

“I … can’t promise – not without knowing what you -”

“It’s simple, brown eyes,” Casey said, tipping Chuck’s head up another inch or two, eyes pinning him in place. “I want to know exactly who you are.” 

-x-End Wings of Grace Chapter Twenty-Four-x-


	25. Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

-x-

All in all, it wasn’t fair to the kid. Dear God, he should’ve been born with at least a few expressions that weren’t transparent. Instead, every last thought streaked behind his eyes, clear and crisp as the rolling landscape, the way every leaf is suddenly sharp and visible in a flash of lightening at night.

But as he held his jaw, sizing up those hurt dark eyes, Casey had to give thanks to the family tree – wherever the roots had planted in the earth – that Chuck had been cursed with windows for eyes.

“I asked you a question, boy,” Casey reminded him, and he felt the kid flinch at the insult. “Who are you?

“First, you can lay off the boy talk,” Chuck answered hotly. A scarlet hue lit up his neck as he stared back at him. “Second, you already know, so I’d appreciate it if you’d move your damn hand.”

Though the kid knew how to play the ‘sweetly oblivious’ card, he’d have to find some other sucker. Casey was well-versed in the art of a con. Every twitch spoke to him. The manner in which Chuck’s jaw tightened, the brief flit of his eyes up and to the left over Casey’s shoulder, a sure sign of a person searching for an answer that wasn’t the truth. With the kid, it was right there for the taking.

“Getting a little tired of eating the line of crap you’re feeding me, that’s all.”

Chuck looked mortally offended. “I haven’t lied to you in the least, you big –”

“Not saying it is right there in bed with deceit.” Casey’s eyes narrowed as he gazed into a pair that looked decidedly trapped. “Though that was a lie as well. You’ve been telling a few juicy whoppers all along.”

“Me? Jerk!” Given that he couldn’t get free, the kid muttered something rebellious under his breath. It was muffled, but Casey caught something about a big Irish peckerwood needing to mind his own fucking business.

Heh. This big Irish peckerwood ignored him. And the warm fingers around his wrist, attempting to tug it backwards. “Still waiting on an answer, kid.”

“Who ... am I? I’ve got an idea.” Chuck gave up on pulling back, and instead took Casey by the wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. “Why don’t you answer the same?”

The grip only made Casey clamp down a little harder, stopping when he saw the kid’s hurt animal eyes tighten a bit. “’Cause it’s none of your damn business,” Casey replied, giving Chuck’s head a little shake. “Now answer the question.”

Still shirtless, Casey could see the muscles along the kid’s ribcage soften a little. Chuck knew he wouldn’t get loose anytime soon, and the more he fought, the harder the hold. Relaxing his limbs would mean he’d use his wits and smile to get out of the quandary.

Not gonna work, muffin.

As Casey braced himself, this pretty young man, tipping his head back far enough for Casey to stare into wary dark eyes, curled his lips into a shy smile. His thumb, pressing into flesh of his forearm a moment ago, now brushed the sensitive skin of Casey’s inner wrist. Back and forth, gently soothing.

Oh, you are good at this, you little shit.

“Did it occur to you,” Chuck began, one finger on his other hand circling in a sarcastic, think this through manner, “that what you just said might just be – oh, I don’t know- a double standard of epic portions?”

“Did it occur to you that I don’t give a monkey’s toss?”

“Really nice, John.” Chuck glared at him, lips tight like he was half-considering biting the hand on his jaw. “You haven’t exactly been forthcoming with your background, have you? I mean, let’s start with this one, shall we? How did you end up getting shot that night?”

“A bullet from none of your damn business,” Casey said, smirking derisively. “And you’re not getting out of it that easily, brown eyes.” He used the grip to turn the kid’s face from one side to the other, examining the depths of cluelessness. “Boston. I’ll give you that much.”

Chuck raised his eyes, baffled at first, but his mutinous took hold. “Why does this matter to you?” he asked. “Why do you care?”

Clueless does not even begin to touch this, does it? Casey considered him for a moment before letting go of his jaw. He watched as the kid immediately scrambled a few feet away, sitting on the very edge of the blanket.

“Why?” Casey shook his head in wonderment, because no one who has academically-enhanced ivy shoved up his ass could be that slow. Then rubbing his face, the larger man let out a sound, a guttural snort full of disbelief.

Admittedly, he was bad at this, letting a man know. How in the hell could he say that he wanted another human being, that in a way they were tied together like strands of barbed wire? It was going to cut his flesh in strips to pull away. But it’d flog his skin to ribbons to say it.

Puh. Women’s talk.

So bad at this? Same as saying McClellan at Antietam in ’62 had been a minor misstep against the confederates. Catastrophe was what it was.

Usually, relationships – eh, hated that word - were complicated, a messy tangle of emotions, and when the smoke cleared, he was happy to get out of there.

And yet there was this kid. Sitting there, every tense lean inch of him, arms wrapped around his bent knees, doing everything he could to carefully not meet his eyes. Failing miserably at it, too.

The truth was slowly killing him. Casey never wanted to let Chuck out of his sight, even as he wanted him to unfold his wings as far as he could go, soar away from here.

All right. To hell with it. He had feelings about that damn kid. Linked at first by coincidental circumstances, then by the need to survive, and finally by a shockingly deep physical reaction, the idiot still had no idea about his feelings for him.

“Jesus ... why.” Casey should tell him. He should open his mouth, forget how bad he is at this, and just say it.

He frowned briefly at the thought and cocked an eye at him, still considering which string of words in his head would come first. Looking the kid over, he opened his mouth to tell – he really did –

Then swore a shit storm under his breath.

“Um, would you like some more chicken to go with that?” Chuck asked, while Casey finished up a few exacting and colorful curses. He covered his ancestors for their bullheadedness, his own feelings for having the nerve to show, and even Vic for the way she raised her head to give him that look. Listening to the grumbles and growls, the kid’s brows slowly cranked upward. “Or do you have enough chicken over there?”

Shit. He knew.

Casey picked up a twig and gave it a toss. “You’re no Southie,” he told him instead of everything else passing through his mind.

“What – I thought you were still swearing at me?”

“Not at you,” Casey muttered. “Answer the question.”

“Southie?” The kid said it cautiously, resting his elbows on his knees. “No, obviously not.”

“You’ve been trained to speak, all uptight and proper – you don’t sound like anyone from Boston I knew. There’s only just a bit of the accent that I can hear.” Now that he had side-stepped any confessions , Casey sprawled out with his rather large feet and crossed them at the ankles. “I’ve got to give you some credit, though, kid. You do a fair job of hiding the dialect.”

“Maybe your lofty acquaintances ran in different social circles than mine.”

Casey, laughing to himself, tossed another twig. “Did they like to get bolloxed at the local until they can’t open their Y-fronts?”

“Uh ... no?”

“Get stocious and pull off a hand mucker at cards?”

Another blank look.

“Heh.” Casey reached over and tapped his cheek, grinning impudently at the thought of it. “Yeah. It’s a safe bet, princess, that your crowd and mine didn’t mingle.”

“I’m back to my first question,” Chuck said, bending his head and resting his chin on his knee. “Why is this important to you?"

“Look at you.” Casey waved a hand. “Out in this forsaken place, by yourself, barely surviving -”

“Hey, I’m not that bad!”

“And not prepared to defend yourself,” Casey continued. “Hiding from God knows what.” Heaving a sigh, he reached out a foot and nudged the kid’s thigh with a firm toe, doing what he thought would make the gesture reassuring. It’s okay. “So I’ll ask it again. Who are you?”

It was unfair to confront him like this, but he really couldn’t leave the kid thinking his make-believe story would fool anyone with an ounce of savvy. Asking him point blank was the only way around it. Chuck couldn’t tell a lie to save his soul, and Casey couldn’t stand anymore of the nervous throat-clearing and the way he avoided his eyes.

“I told you everything you need to know,” the kid said defensively, swatting at a fly.

A large hand flew up in front of Chuck’s face. Without a word, Casey pinched the annoying insect between two fingers and flicked it away.

“Whoa.” Mouth hanging open, Chuck squinted over at him. “I – I could’ve done that, you know. If you hadn’t gotten to him first.”

Casey grunted, biting back a smile at Chuck’s raised eyebrows. “Everything, eh?” he echoed skeptically. “I know there are things you don’t want to tell me, brown eyes, so let me start. You ran from someone, that’s obvious enough.” He paused for a moment, considering him as he ran a hand over his stubble. “And you took a fair amount of cash with you when you hightailed it out of there.”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Chuck snapped, choking on the indignity.

“Didn’t say that, did I?”

Chuck stayed quiet, peering down the ridge and lost in his thoughts. Blue shadows lengthened under the grove of aspens, creeping into the clefts of rock here on the trail. After a minute, his thoughts appeared to shift, and the kid finally turned to really look at him. “If you’re done eating, we can get back now, because I –”

“Done? Hardly. Wherever the money came from – and for conversation purposes, let’s just say it was yours –”

“It was mine!” Chuck blurted, already struggling with revealing details to Casey against needing to defend honor. Casey watched as he turned red-faced at the outburst, and pushed the tin plate away in a show of disgust with himself. “Can we go now?”

“It was a nice pocketful, too,” Casey hastened to add, lazily brushing away a few crumbs. “Enough to buy a substantial bit of property and a decent farm. A barn ... some beasts and chickens. Still, you’re as damn helpless out here or in field as a ferocious kitten.”

“I’m learning, okay?” He gave an uneasy glance at his feet. “The ... books I had on agricultural production systems and animal welfare weren’t really all that useful, if you need to know.”

“Books. Christ.” Casey stared at him for a long moment, the corner of his mouth twitching. “The only thing you knew was that you could hide out here and maybe teach yourself to survive. With a little luck.” He looked at him from curls to bare toes, and shook his head. “Mostly, you could get away and start over. Have the freedom you couldn’t get at home. Even build that crazy machine if you wanted to.”

“Are you about finished here? Narrating my life?”

By now, the kid had begun to sound a little nervous. Casey liked that sound, that little quiver that had edged into his voice. It told him that so far, he was hammering all around the truth.

“But the money that you did manage to take ran out faster than you thought, eh, pancake?”

“I wasn’t – I got the start I needed. It was enough.” Nervous and a little fidgety, the kid picked up one of the knives and twirled it between two fingers. “Are we going back now?”

“What you have going for you, though, is your resourcefulness,” Casey went on, and he leaned back, propping himself on his elbows in a way that said not budging yet. “You have some smarts, even though most of it is just book smarts.”

“You do know how to dole out the compliments,” Chuck grumbled. As he straightened, the kid began packing up the meager leftovers. “Book smarts have suited me fine, thanks.”

Casey cast a glance at him. The afternoon sun was getting lower; rays slanted through the leaves, passing dappled shadows on the kid’s cheeks. Time was quickly dwindling. So he stretched out one of his legs and pushed the tin pail out of Chuck’s reach.

Chuck frowned. “Do you mind? I was trying to –”

“Yeah, I mind. You figured out how to get by. By a whisker, anyway. You can’t go back because they won’t let you leave again.” Casey grunted a bit ruefully as Chuck opened his mouth, cutting off whatever protest was getting ready to spill. “Who, I don’t know, but I will find out,” he said bluntly. “You picked a hard road, and that’s why you’re stuck here. But for some reason, you thought it’d be easier than your road back home.”

“Why are you so sure I’m hiding?”

“That’s one thing I know about, kid. And you?” Casey studied him as he pinched a long stalk of grass between his thumb and forefinger. “You jump at a shadow.”

“Only when there’s a gun pointed at me,” Chuck argued.

“The night you shot at me was the first time you ever pulled a trigger.”

“And – and I suppose you see a problem with that?”

Casey shook his head, because the kid asked that seriously. “Out here? Hell, yes, I do,” he said. “You changed your name.”

Chuck’s eyes grew wide. “I – I never said that!”

“The others who come out here ... they’re all chasing dreams. That’s the only thing you have in common with them. They want to own something, want their independence, build a life out here. You? Jesus, boy. You got out here to get lost, fade into the shadows. Otherwise, this is the last place in hell you would be.”

“Can you move your foot?” Chuck gave him a contemptuous look when he didn’t, and reached over it to get the pail. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

Despite the scowl, he wasn’t about to stop there. “Can’t shoot, can’t hunt, can’t farm,” Casey said, counting them off with his fingers. “Shit, can barely make a fire. Hands as silky as a newborn’s butt. I’m guessing you’ve always had someone who does those things for you.”

He almost laughed when Chuck briefly glimpsed at his hands, but the kid shook his head and kept packing up the food. “Pass me the canteen if you’re done.”

“A little more advice?”

“I wasn’t asking,” Chuck said, starting to fume.

“You should keep your bluffs closer to the truth,” Casey instructed, and undeterred, nudged him in the ribs. “That way, they’re believable and you don’t have to work too hard.”

“Work? I’m not – I don’t have to listen to this.” Chuck’s jaw was set stubbornly, and he looked to the side as he stuffed the last of it into the pail. When Casey followed his eyes, he saw that the kid had scanned for the whereabouts of his unloaded buckshot rifle.

Really, goddess. You need so much help.

“Bartowski, eh?” Casey whistled softly through his teeth and the scoffing noise made Chuck turn his head to him. “Zly mecz.”

The kid’s gaze rested curiously on him. “Um, gesundheit?”

“Mmph,” Casey answered, sitting up. “I said bad leg. In Polish. Either that or stoke the fire – it’s been a long while, and sometimes I forget.”

“Stoke the – Polish? When would you even –"

“There was a boy in my regiment from Pennsylvania ... he taught me a few words. Immigrant. Injured his leg at Shiloh, but the scrappy little bastard refused to go home.” He frowned, drumming his fingers on his knee. “Kid was killed at Manassas before he could teach me much more than that. Too bad. He had a knack for Gaelic.”

His eyes slanted over to the kid. Bare chested and wearing his jeans slung low on his hips, Casey could see the tension tighten Chuck’s wiry muscles along his chest and arms. Under any other circumstances, he would enjoy the view of his lean sun-warmed body, but not when the twerp was still lying to him. “I forgot the words ... I’m not –”

“Smart?” Casey finished. “You still expect me to believe you’re not a brainy rich Boston kid? Harvard? You’re an upper class Yankee from the East Coast establishment. I can smell your manners and your family’s success. A mile away, princess.” He chuckled, the rancor evident. “Bartowski.”

Half-naked, there was no hiding it. With his rangy body on display, Casey could see the flat muscles of his stomach bunch, a brief signal that he was on brink of bolting.

It happened in a blink. For one heartbeat, Chuck’s large dark eyes were fixed on him and staring, and maybe the kid was wondering how his cover story of a poor boy immigrant blew away like fronds from a dried out dandelion. The next, the kid’s hesitation was gone, and quickly looking to the side, he jumped.

Hell. He tried at least. Too bad for the kid that the spring-like tension along his naked ribcage pretty much told Casey to move. No doubt, the kid had long legs he knew how to use, and Chuck would be hard to catch if he let him get to his feet. Well, Casey wasn’t about to let him get that far.

Before the kid could spin around, the larger man sprung like a poked bear, pounced. Chuck never got within a foot of leaving the blanket, and he was sorely mistaken if he would any time soon.

“Nuh-uh,” Casey told him, grabbing both shoulders and pinning him down on the blanket. “Easy, cupcake. Just talking, aren’t we?”

The response was immediate, an explosion of gangly limbs twisting and kicking under him. “Do you - have to be – a bastard!” the kid gasped. Then, “Stop, please, you’re hurting me!”

“Eh?” More or less, he could be gentle, God – had to be gentle. Hurting him was the last thing he wanted to do. Casey drew back to look over him thoroughly, and felt a stab between his ribs when he saw some physical pain swirling in those brown eyes. “Shit,” he cursed under his breath, wondering if the kid would figure out the swear wasn’t meant for him.

“Did you hear me?” Chuck said through his teeth, fighting him, trying to pull back. “Why –”

“Settle,” Casey said a little more roughly, then softer, “I want you to slow down.” As gently as possible, he eased against him, using one elbow to keep the full press of his torso from flattening the kid into the ground. “Don’t mean to hurt you.”

“Asshole! You already have!”

Easy, he told himself. Be careful.

Methodically, he scooped his wrists in one palm. Holding them together on the blanket, pinioned over his head, Casey gave him a piercing glare that warned him to quit the tussling. “Typical. You feel cornered, you run, eh, kid?”

This kid never learned. Showing he wasn’t quite done, the short violent struggle played out like the twitching of a fly in a web. It left Chuck’s breath coming hot and fast, while Casey felt a new gouge on his wrist where the kid had clawed him, and a spot on his upper thigh that would be sure to have a bruise tomorrow.

The cupcake here had a little fight in him, and Casey had to admit he liked that bit of scrappiness.

Still, he held Chuck’s hands to the ground, pressed him down evenly until he showed signs of tiring. And with their faces so close, Casey played with the idea of covering his mouth with his, giving him a kiss that was neither gentle or undemanding until he just flat out surrendered.

A knee that came awfully close to a place Casey treasured made him snap out of it. “You need to give it up, button.” he said, rasping the kid’s face with his bearded stubble. “There’s only one man I’ve ever met who can beat me fair and square. Strongest meanest bastard I know, and you ain’t him.”

“Your gun is digging into me again!”

“Gun?” Casey had to roll his eyes before he glanced at the Colt, tucked inside the holster and lying within reach next to the blanket. “Kid, that’s your warning,” he said, his voice going lower. “I’d stop all that squirming if I were you, or squirrels will be in season again.”

His face flushed with realization. “Then get off me!” Chuck demanded, trying to flip him. “Bloody arse!”

That’s when Casey caught a glisten. The kid had struggled hard enough to force a single tear of helpless frustration; it slid out of the corner of his eye, burned in a red streak down the side of his face.

“Don’t tell me you’re crying.” It was unfair and low, since he could see it was from a fight and exasperation. Feeling like a shit for that, Casey smoothed a big thumb over his cheek, wiping away the wetness, and chided softly, “Not allowed to cry out here, kid.”

“Fuck you,” Chuck muttered, brown eyes crackling. He tried to roll over, even as Casey softened his tease by brushing away a few wild curls over his forehead, stuck to his face with sweat. “I don’t cry.”

That was a fair assessment - on both counts. After what he had been through, Chuck proved he wasn’t a cry baby, and yes, Casey was being a gigantic arse at the moment. But getting him riled up would serve his purpose. When Chuck was rattled, he talked.

“I like the feistiness, kid,” Casey said, squeezing down lightly on the hand that held his wrists. “Just not now. You should save it for later tonight, eh? When it will come to some good use.”

Chuck looked up at him in astonishment. The thick brown lashes, so close, fluttered as he blinked. “You’re talking about that now?” Chuck bristled, and he bucked up with his hips. “When I’m talking about kicking your ass as soon as I get – dammit – out of this!”

Casey, rolling his eyes, resolutely wiped away another drop of water that sparkled on his lower lash. “I’m going to ask one more time –”

“What’s Black Rock?” Chuck blurted.

“Where did you see that name?” Casey inquired guardedly, pulling back to search his face.

“On the posting. They’re the ones looking for you, it said.”

Of course, Liam would make it look like the upstanding Black Rock associates would be trying to find him, just to clear their good name. He was right about one thing. They would be looking for him.

“It’s a name you should forget,” Casey told him, resting against the warm skin, feeling him tighten up again. “And if I recall, I was the one asking the questions.”

“You’re going back soon.” Chuck whispered it hoarsely, and hearing the sound of it, Casey wasn’t sure if it was the aftermath of his struggle or something else in his throat.

“If I don’t,” Casey said, and though it would piss him off to be touched right now, he lowered his free hand, explored along Chuck’s ribcage, gently, slowly as a tickling feather, “he’ll send someone to find me.”

“Find you?”

“Mm.” He stayed at it, groping, caressing, feeling him at last quiver and go slack at his touch. The kid had molded perfectly to Casey’s intention. He needed him to stop fighting, because the words would be hard. “If I don’t, it would lead them right here to you. That’s why.”

“That – it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Doesn’t have to, to you,” Casey said, running his hand down his thigh. “That’s the end of it.”

“You’re ... afraid of them.” While he looked up at him, the kid pulled at his hands, a test to see if Casey would free him. “Is that it?”

“There’s a difference between being afraid and being stupid,” Casey replied, answering the pull by clamping their hands downward, sinking into the grass. He wasn’t ready to let him go just yet. “Smart boy like you should know the difference.”

“I need you to be honest with me.” The kid paused, lowered his soft brown eyes, lingering on his mouth before he looked to the side. “Can you do that?”

“I have been. But there are some things you don’t need to know.”

“Glad you feel that way, John,” Chuck answered dryly. “Does this mean you’re done? Oh, and did you know, there are other ways to communicate with a person that lack the actual tackling part of the conversation?”

“Not when that person is an ornery little weasel who never listens.” When Chuck turned his face upward to give him a sour look for that, Casey brought his hand to the curve of the kid’s neck. “Want to know what else I noticed?”

“No.” Eyes flashing, he wormed a knee loose. “Let me up, dammit!”

“You don’t have your name on anything you own from what I can tell. Even that box on the mantel with the silver wings on the front -”

“Are you insane?!” Chuck managed to gape between sputters. “You went through my things? Who said you could do that?”

“Kid, it’s what I do for a living.” Anticipating the revolt beneath him, Casey pressed down, thwarting the kid’s effort to get his legs out from under Casey’s thighs. “I find out what I want to know,” he said, looking down his nose into Chuck’s eyes, filled with alarm. “And seeing as you were the hostage, I figured I didn’t need permission.”

“You – you didn’t try to open it?”

Casey shrugged, speculating that perhaps he should have, considering the shudder he felt along Chuck’s torso. “Nah. I was only ... curious about the effort someone had gone to, though, to scrape the bottom of it. If it weren’t for that, an enquiring person could make out a family name.”

“Scr-scrape?”

“With a sharp tool? Know anyone who has those?” As Casey bent his head, he put his lips to the kid’s ear and whispered, “Whatever was etched there, someone wanted to get rid of it. Eh, Bartowski?”

“Interfering, nosy, bastard!”

“Yeah, asshole, too, remember?” Casey tacked on casually, his attention only briefly distracted by the lean biceps tightening as the kid strained to move his arms. “Answer the question.”

Chuck shook his hair out of his eyes, his fingers twitching under Casey’s immovable hand. “If ... if I do, just the one question – that’s it – you’ll let me up?” He lifted his chin, his eyes still filled with belligerence. But then in a signal he would give into it, the kid eased his shoulders and Casey felt his arms unwind. “Is that a promise?”

“Eh.” Casey, absently skimming a thumb over the kid’s inner wrist, looked down into his face. A few wacky cowlicks stood up straight and over his temple, the thing it tended to do when Chuck was rolling around under him, though this time was not as pleasant as the previous encounters ....

Waiting, the kid smiled up at him tentatively and wide-eyed. “Well, John?”

“Yeah, okay. Agreed,” he said before he could stop and pull the words back. “One question.”

“Good,” Chuck replied.

Casey adjusted his hip to a more comfortable position, contemplating the reason Chuck had acquiesced so quickly. “Bartowski?”

The kid bit down on his lip for a second as he arranged his thoughts. And he said, “The Pullman.”

Casey’s eyes drew to slits, debating if the kid was yanking his chain. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but coherence, at least. “The Pullman?” Casey repeated slowly, bearing his thumb down a bit on his wrist, making Chuck’s fingers curl. “Explain.”

“Ah – don’t – don’t do that. Yes, the Pullman – the sleeping car.”

“I know what a Pullman is, kid,” Casey said in a low growl. “What I want to know is what the fuck it has to do with this.”

“I was in the Pullman car ... and I don’t think he was the porter,” the kid said, as if that clarified the mess he told. “A conductor, I gathered,”

“Can you get to the part where any of this makes sense?”

“Well ... I -” He drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “That was his name. Bartowski.”

“The conductor.” Casey let his fingers dig into his delicate flesh, warning him his patience was ebbing. “Mind explainin’ what in the hell does that have to do with your name?”

“I ... when I left, I didn’t give some details a lot of thought. Ellie always said I could be ... impetuous, I guess.”

“Impetuous?” Casey snorted. “Reckless twit, she meant. Go ahead.”

“Thanks for the clarification,” Chuck said acerbically, trying to twist a leg free. Don’t wear yourself out, kid. “It – it happened quickly, and by the time I was in southern Illinois, I decided I needed a new name. To go with a new life ....” He looked up at his wrists in Casey’s hand, hoping that was enough to let him go. “C’mon, Casey, I told you.”

Casey didn’t move, his face carefully expressionless.

“All ... right. Not convinced, I see.” Chuck huffed in annoyance. “Fine. It was the first name I saw – you know, on his jacket? And I thought it was as good as any, so I picked it. There. I answered your one question. Now let me up.” He smiled, the innocent one Casey was beginning to hate, and added in an afterthought, “Uh, please?”

Casey remained motionless over him, noses a scant few inches apart and staring down into his face, bright with exertion. One question. The kid had played him, or thought he did, but Casey still had him pinned to the ground like a bug under his boot. Had his hands and legs utterly immobilized. It’d be easy. He could make him talk. Just because he had promised, well, that didn’t mean a damn thing.

A muscle flexed in his jaw as he debated what to do next. Casey hardly realized that his hand was now brushing the kid’s flat stomach, then drifting around his waist.

“Um, John.” The kid lifted his hips and wiggled his hands, dark brows slowly raising. “A promise?”

Why in God’s name was this kid’s trust important to him? But with the way Casey’s heart was now going like a horseshoer’s hammer, he knew it was. Without the strength to physically overpower him, the kid had done that very thing. Made him give a promise that would stretch the fragile thread of his trust to a snapping point if Casey didn’t honor it.

Fucking tricky little con artist.

There was a short silence, broken by a pair of birds moving and bickering among the branches overhead. Still considering his options, Casey lowered his face directly over the kid’s, studying Chuck’s wary expression.

“I – I should let you know that breathing is becoming problematic,” the kid said, tightening his fists under Casey’s grip. “Not to mention the ... gun digging into my hip. I mean, I answered, didn’t I?”

“The Pullman,” Casey said under his breath, rubbing the flesh just above the kid’s waistband, feeling him hitch at the ticklish spot. Finally he resigned himself to it, and with one more threatening look, Casey clenched Chuck’s wrists before letting them go. “Get up. Hardly an answer, though, kid.”

Chuck sat up quickly, frowning and rubbing at his wrists for Casey’s benefit. “I might’ve mentioned this – oh, I don’t know, a dozen times? - but not everything is solved with brute force,” he emphasized sarcastically. “It isn’t exactly fun for the other person.” The kid tilted his head appraisingly, looking him over. “Though I wondered why you call me pancake. Now I know.”

“Tamp down on that cynicism or you’ll find yourself flat on your back again.”

The kid shot him a dirty look, but he did keep his mouth shut.

Heh. He was learning.

“Okay, now that you’re done playing games,” Casey said, “you can tell me your name.”

“I’m ... I’m sorry.” Chuck’s voice had gotten unsteady. Eyes searching the ground, he made a grab for his shirt, curled there under the tree where Casey had hastily removed it for him. “Are we going now?”

Unfazed by the tactic, Casey reached out and simply snagged the shirt out of his hands and casually flung it to the side. “Think that ploy’s gonna work?” he asked. “Name, kid. Still waiting.”

Chuck blinked down at his hands where his shirt had been a second ago, and then to Casey’s face. He slouched his shoulders before he shook his head slowly. “I said I’m sorry.”

“Let’s start with something easier,” Casey suggested, watching the kid cross his arms over his chest, perturbed about his shirt being rudely ripped from him. “Middle name. Hm? Everyone has one of those. What’s your middle name, kid?”

Once more he backed away on the blanket and used his wheedling brown eyes to their utmost potential. “I ... can’t,” he said, one foot coming out to bump Casey’s leg softly, as if to assuage him since the words would not.

“Jesus, you are kidding me.”

As an answer, the kid kept his eyes firmly from him and shook his head again.

Casey raised his eyebrows. This was a new territory for him, since pummeling a man senseless was usually the next move. But seeing that Chuck could not be persuaded in the usual, darker manner, Casey eased himself down, sprawled on his back and ran his hand along the blanket next to his hip.

“Come here,” Casey rumbled, patting the place where he expected the kid to be sitting. “Not gonna make you. I do have another question.”

“No more promises that I’ll answer,” Chuck cautioned. He was reluctant to move, Casey saw, but eventually the lure of bare skin to bare skin won him over, and he scooted close, lay back side by side. “What do you want?”

A finger moved to his face, drawing from his temple to cheek, smoothing his hair behind his ear. Chuck remained stock-still under his scrutiny, though Casey could feel plainly that he flinched as his hand passed over his neck, thumb gently stroking the hollow of his throat.

“I want to know the one who left you so screwed up.”

And after that, Casey was going do two things. First, he would throttle that can of piss, tear his langer off, and serve it to him in a turnip stew. Then he’d take the love-struck fucking idiot who had just asked that question and beat him with a big stick.

“Wh-who?” Chuck asked, throat bobbing under Casey’s thumb.

“The one who made you afraid of your own shadow. Was it the dickhead, or another asshat I don’t know about yet?” When he didn’t look over, Casey moved a hand to the kid’s jaw to get him to meet his eyes. “So my last question. Is that why you’re here?”

Chuck rubbed the back of his head as though it ached. “I don’t need saving,” he said with unexpected peevishness.

“Never said you did.”

His fingers absently played with the edge of the blanket. “The answer’s still no.” He got up on his elbows and took a drink from the canteen. Watching him, Casey felt a sense that he was at peace with his decision, and for now the kid was done.

Casey laid a forearm over his eyes, unable to repress a grimace. He wanted to say it. Tell him he was stronger than them, whoever they were. Stronger than he thought. It always happened like this, the words never quite made it past the heavy block in his throat.

“Hey,” he heard Chuck murmur. Shifting his arm slightly, Casey could see the kid slanting his head to the side, eyes pinned to something that had caught his attention. With a little bit too much damn familiarity, Chuck reached over Casey’s head into his pack. “You said this was broken. I could fix this one, too, you know,” The kid brought his hand up, dangling Casey’s pocket watch from his finger. “It wouldn’t be a problem. I know I could if you’d like me to?”

“How long would it take?” Casey asked.

Chuck turned it over in his hand, and Casey could tell he wanted to crack it open then and there to take a look. “Depends, I guess. It could be the winding wheel, a loose balance screw ... a broken regulator.” He lay back again, dropped his head in the nook of Casey’s shoulder and stretched one leg along his. One bare foot rubbed along Casey’s toes. “A couple days should do it.”

“You better put it back in the pack, then,” Casey responded, his voice getting throaty. “That wouldn’t work.” He moved a hand, tracing Chuck’s bottom lip with his thumb. There’ll be miles between us in a couple days.

The underlying wistfulness in his tone, a twinge Casey had failed to hide, made Chuck tip his chin up to see his face. Perceptive of him. He had that going for him at least, because sometimes, it seemed, nothing got by this kid.

As he rolled it in his palm, Casey caught a flash of heartbreaking sadness in those eyes he’d never seen there before. “I ... okay. I’ll put it back,” Chuck said, making use of that long reach to tuck the pocket watch back into the pack. Releasing a breath, he slid an arm over Casey’s chest and pressed his body up against his, letting him feel every flex of his long limbs to his. “Maybe someday it will be the right time ... you’ll find the right person who can fix it.”

“Dia cabhrú liom,” Casey mumbled.

“Hm?”

“Nothing. Just lay there and shut up.” The right person. Taunting, hm, God? Because the first time he saw a pair of dark eyes, a crooked smile, and a pretty man with a pure heart, he should’ve packed up his guns, cinched the saddle, and got the fuck out of there. That kind of a man didn’t belong with him. Couldn’t fix every shitty, broken piece of him.

Maybe he had started to feel whole again this week, but he didn’t deserve it. And this kid certainly didn’t deserve all the fucked-up baggage that came with him.

Part of him wanted to do something idiotic. Say everything he wanted to say. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he’d say. ‘There are two of us now.’

Chuck was wrong about one thing. They both needed saving. Because if anyone would fly too close to the sun, it would be the kid. Someone would have to be there when those wings were broken, and he needed fixing.

“Did you want to stay here a little longer?” he heard Chuck whisper against his chin. “I like this.”

He sensed warmth on his chest; he had scarcely felt the kid’s hand where it rested, now tracing small circles over his bare skin. Then he noticed. Chuck’s palm was over his heart.

“No, not yet,” Casey countered, voice coming from a deep place.

No.

One more night. One more night like this.

-x-

“Damn chickens. Git!” Holding his arms out in a wide arc, Casey tried shooing a large black and white speckled one into the barn. He was mightily tempted to use his boot. As he glared at the feathered menace, the ornery thing squawked and flapped as if he had. “Lucky we didn’t have fresh roast bird tonight, eh?” Casey muttered. Herding cows or wild horses, he understood, but these animals seemed to scatter in every direction. Didn’t follow the rules of basic a round up.

Eventually, with more patience than even he thought he possessed, the last of the flock entered though the yawning barn door, and Casey fastened it shut for the night. He had taken care of the horses first, filling the water troughs, wiping them down before he picked out the hooves to be sure there were no tiny rocks or loose nails in their iron shoes.

The kerosene lantern he carried created a soft golden glow against the dusk. As Casey strode over the grassy path to the cabin, he could see the night sky promised a brilliance of stars, nothing like tempest of clouds and thunder the night he found this place.

He thought back on the afternoon, wondering if he should’ve just left the kid when they split paths earlier in the day. He could’ve abandoned him at that tree, and it would’ve been cleaner that way.

It never occurred to him. The compelling need to stay triumphed the fear of staying.

By the time they arrived at the cabin, the sun had sunk beneath the ridge, the shadows of the porch and trees laying deep on the ground. He watched the kid out of the corner of his eye, not saying much as he carefully put away his supplies and catalogued the broken hodgepodge of household items and tools.

Casey avoided the lost puppy eyes throughout dinner, not an easy feat considering he sat across the table from the kid. Or considering the depth of those liquid pools of brown.

Cleaning up after supper, Casey had shrugged on his coat and hat, taking care of the outside duties since he saw the kid was already in the midst of dissembling the silliest thing he had laid eyes on. The frog bank.

Horseshit. Now he was kidding himself.

It had nothing to do with the frog bank. They had covered some dark territory over the course of the day, and Casey had lost track of his thoughts amid a warm afternoon under a tree. He was torn at the thought of the kid being alone out here; wet nights, fending for himself. He needed to get some space between them. To get his head sorted out again.

The truth was the kid was dangerous, more lethal than a rattler. At least when that bit him, he could suck out the venom and spit it out, but with Chuck, the moment it happened, it was too late. The infection ran quick-fire into his veins.

As his boots creaked on the loose floorboards of the porch, he turned to look around the yard one more time, gazing through the dark. Casey hesitated for just an instant, hand on the knob before giving it a push. Coward, he chided, and walked in for the last time.

The door swung shut behind him with a soft thump, making Chuck look up at him. The kid sat as his table, a few tools scattered around him, the lamp casting pale light in a circle on his hands.

“Hey,” he said, flashing that beautiful smile, his lashes sweeping up as he glanced to him. “Everything okay out there?”

“You should consider altering your opinion on the laying hens,” Casey told him, slipping out of his coat and plunking his hat on a hook. “I think the dark and buff one would look better with gravy than in the barnyard raising hell.”

This provoked a wider smile. “Frannie’s a bit temperamental about being told to come in, but if you leave the door open and step back, she’ll march in like she owns the place.”

“Frannie?”

“Um-hum.” Chuck eyed him thoughtfully before he turned his attention back to his tools, smile fading. It was clear that something had absorbed every ounce of his focus, marked by the way he kept fiddling at it while he spoke. “That was the squawking, I presume?”

“Damn bird,” Casey nodded, moving closer to the table. He put his hands on the back of the kid’s chair, and found his eyes immediately drawn to those sure, long fingers. Not until that moment did he notice the object that the kid held.

“I’m sorry,” Chuck said quickly, looking guilty as a thief - except with a pair of imploring eyes that didn’t quite go with a career of larceny.

His grandfather’s pocket watch caught the light of the lantern, gleaming like a glory of stars as the kid turned it in his hand. “What’re you doing?” Casey asked. When it became evident the kid was tongue-tied, Casey gripped his chin gently in his hand, turning Chuck’s face up to him. “My watch?”

“I ... um.” Chuck looked down a bit sheepishly. “I ... shouldn’t have touched it – but I thought if I could fix it ... tonight, you’d have at least something to ... maybe you’d remember me? It sounds stupid, I know. I said I’m sorry – are you mad?”

“Death of me,” Casey murmured to himself. He let go then, and watched as Chuck rubbed his jaw, not indignantly. It gave Casey the sense he was imprinting the feel of his fingers there, every touch being near the last.

“I’ll put it back.” The shiny gold casing went on with a twist. “There,” the kid said, scrambling awkwardly to his feet. He put the watch in Casey’s large hand, and smiling shyly, curled his fingers around it for him. “Everything’s back the way it was.”

Momentarily amused by his innocence, the words mocked him in every way. How could a man smell so clean when he stood this close? How naïve to think it, though. Being burned this way, he may never be the same.

Casey was perfectly still, eyes unblinking. “Not quite,” he finally said. Wanting something this badly could kill a man, but he was past that boundary tonight, farther than the first stars spread against purple velvet. “Want you to close your eyes.”

“What do you ....” Chuck began, but Casey lowered his head and kissed him, cutting short his query. His lips fit firmly over the kid’s, pressing a little harder with his tongue, and Chuck had finally figured this out. Shut up. Talking left his lips open a bit, and this time he made no attempt to close them. He was still timid with his tongue however, Casey noticed, a bit clueless on how to use it combined with being taken off guard by the sudden invasion.

Casey pressed, feeling Chuck’s lips soften and yielding, unbearably open to anything he would suggest next. He kept his mouth moving, relentless yet slow, exactly how he planned it upstairs in a few minutes from now. To be sure Chuck understood this, he slid his tongue inside along his, exploring him with bold awareness, and of course when he gently nipped his lower lip, the kid inhaled sharply. Just the perfect opening to suck his lip into his mouth, drag his tongue over it a few times. Give him a few soft licks of encouragement, instruction of the baser variety. Yeah, you want do that that to my cock, don’t you?

Chuck mumbled something that was hardly a noise of wordless protest, lost in a hard breath. One of the kid’s hands grasped his shirt, not tugging or knowing what to do besides to simply hang on. God, it was always a struggle with the kid. Not knowing how to take, still half-tentative at being taken.

“Mm?”

Now he’s trying to talk. Jesus.

Answering, Casey growled into his mouth, taking his lips in a way that would stifle any other useless words. Because this wasn’t about talking, kid. It was about pushing insistently, rubbing, seeking friction. The warmth of his mouth tasted better than ever, smoky and woodsy from a shot of whiskey after dinner, layered with the slightly salty heat of his tongue. Casey sucked on it, coaxing his in with a little bite on his bottom lip. Like a good boy, smart one, Chuck reflexively mirrored the movement, and Casey smiled against his lips, rocked his hip up to his.

Yeah? Feel that?

You’re mine. That’s what you need to remember.

Hearing a confused little yelp, Casey pulled back, only far enough to put his lips against Chuck’s as he spoke. “That’s not what I need from you tonight,” he said, warm breath shared in a whorl between them. “I need you upstairs. Now.”

“As in ... right this second?” Chuck asked, casting a fleeting look at the pocket watch in Casey’s hand.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant.” Without looking or taking his lips from Chuck’s, Casey gave it a light toss onto the table, hearing it clatter. “I should tell you something, kid.”

Chuck’s lips parted, breathing more heavily. His brows rose in a question.

As Casey moved in, aligning his boots on either side of Chuck’s bare feet, he felt the young man with eyes like warm leather and soft chestnut hair yield to the strong arm sliding around his waist, gripping him hard. He pressed Chuck against the table with his body for another simple brush of lips. Though quick, it was brimming with fire.

“I’m going to take you ... a little more roughly than before,” he whispered, lips still touching. “I want to use your body, kid, all of you.” His arm tightened around that slender waist, pulling until their hips scraped, letting him feel that he was already totally goddamn hard for him. “Promise ... you’ll want this. Won’t want me to stop.”

Because in a day of reckless promises, that was just one more punch in the gut.

Chuck stayed motionless, keeping those warm lips on his. Even with their eyes a hairsbreadth apart, Casey could see the faint flush climbing up the kid’s skin. He stared without speaking for a full ten seconds, thinking.

“I’d ... well, you can –” Chuck broke off there with an awkward bend of his head, eyes getting wider when Casey shifted his boot against the side of one foot.

“What’re you trying to say, kid?”

“Well, I ....” He bumped Casey’s nose, tipping his head to meet his gaze again. “I mean ... just yes,” Chuck said.

It was obvious he was wondering what he had just agreed to. The question wouldn’t linger for long. Casey had every intention of clearing up that bit of ambiguity before he could stutter out another word. Or change his mind.

“Walk,” Casey demanded quietly against his lips. Since Chuck simply looked at him, blinking at the brusque tone, Casey slipped his hand around the kid’s belt buckle, and tugged. “You want to follow me, don’t you?”

“Y-yes.” There was hesitation there, but Casey was pleased to hear him being slightly more decisive. More pleased that the kid’s feet began to shuffle forward as Casey walked backwards, pulling him by the belt. “Okay, okay, I’m moving.”

“Good. Next you can shut up.” With that, Casey was letting him know how this was going to be tonight. Nothing polite or well-behaved was gonna happen up those stairs.

Something struck the heel of his boot. “Careful,” the kid warned, holding out a hand. “The steps are uneven. If you’re not looking, you’re going to –”

“Drag you up them?”

“Uh –”

“Let’s go.” Conveniently, it was the narrow ladder-like staircase that his boot had hit. It was handy that the kid’s cabin was barely as big as a sneeze, which meant moving in this direction blindly, Casey was bound to hit it. He glanced at the kid and gave another stiff pull on his belt. “Look at me and keep walking.”

Chuck hunched his shoulders, wary. “Backwards? It’s hard enough to climb going forward. Are you sure you want to do that way? It may not be safe – ah –”

“Shut up mean something else to you, sunshine?”

When Chuck opened his mouth, Casey arched a brow. The kid then shot him a dirty look, but in his favor, his lips tightened and his mouth stayed shut.

“You’re learning,” Casey said, already on the fifth step and climbing. “I was hoping you’d be teachable. Up to now, you’ve shown you have some potential, brown eyes.”

“Hey! What does that mean – potential? I thought that I was – mmph.”

Without warning, Casey leaned down, pulled him hard against him, and kissed the kid quiet with all his strength behind it. Kissed him hard enough to bruise his lips and force them apart, giving him a taste of whiskey they had shared after dinner, sharp in his mouth. A flailing hand landed on his chest and pushed, and then figuring out what he should be doing, Chuck grabbed a fist full of his shirt and hung the hell on.

“Move,” Casey mumbled against his mouth. His hands gripped him firmly by the waist, and the remaining narrow stairs were traversed before the kid could dig his heels in or argue. “No fighting with me.”

As his foot cleared the final step, Casey tugged Chuck by the belt to center of the small room, the kid’s bare feet almost getting tangled in a woven rug.

“Mmph?” Pulling back from the kiss, Chuck looked around his bedroom loft, flabbergasted at how quickly he went from tinkering to getting his ass yanked up there to get tinkered with. “Um ... do you want me to - stand here?” he asked, but still nervous enough to fold his arms over his shirt. “You’re ... going to have to tell me what you ... want.”

God, this kid. Where would he find one like this again? Just like that, willingness burning through innocence like a brush fire had Casey’s dick twitching.

“Tell you? We could do it that way,” Casey agreed, trying to hide how appealing that sounded. And the effect those soft eyes were having on him. He wasted no more time, and catching his shirt at the hem, Casey yanked it over his head. “Let’s start here.”

“Oh – it has buttons, you know .... Okay, that works, too.” The kid’s brows shot up, and Casey could feel him tighten his arms, but he held them up like a man at gunpoint so that Casey could get the sleeves past his hands. “I didn’t realize it meant – I mean I knew, but –”

“The first time, I used my mouth to shut you up.” Now that he had his attention, Casey took this as a cue to just toss the shirt on a chair, keeping his eyes pinned to Chuck’s flushed face. “Want to know what I use the second time?”

The kid’s eyes widened with a question, searching his face before a fleeting glimpse downward. Then lower. When he looked up again, the brown eyes were large as horseshoes.

“Heh. Genius,” Casey said, giving a disapproving look at the kid’s stance. Progress would only be impeded by his crossed arms, so he batted them away, making Chuck wave his abused fingers in the air.

“Ow. Talking is just a formality with you, isn’t it?”

“What was that?”

“Mm-nuh.” Chuck zipped his lips and threw away the key.

Casey grunted. With smooth pecs and pale flesh in front of him, his fingers then trailed hotly down Chuck’s chest, through the springy patch of dark chest hair, down to his abdomen. “You can get that look of surprise off your face, kid. Did you really think I was going to fuck you with your clothes on?”

“Mm!” At that, Chuck tried to back up a step, biting his lips and no doubt wondering why he was playing this game. Truly, the kid looked like he was ready to burst.

Well, this was why he was playing. Casey reached around him with one hand and gripped his ass hard through his jeans. “Don’t worry, kid. Once I get you naked,” and he was nearly there, just the pants in the way, “I’ll let you talk again. Want to know why?”

“Hm?”

“I like the sounds you make when you’re bare-assed for me.”

Chuck’s brows furrowed, his dark eyes bewildered as he wondered if Casey would really follow through on his warning. “Mmph!” He then shook his head vehemently, obviously getting a little pissed off at the circumstances, but that was okay with Casey. He liked it when the kid got riled up some. Those leaner muscles of his, all roped and clean lines, turned firmer, tightening with a sexy tremor under his warm touch.

Face it. The simmering rebelliousness yet curious compliance kept him hard. Fuck, the brink of heaven couldn’t feel like that against his palm.

“Take your pants?” Casey asked in a mischievous interpretation. “Yeah ... I was thinking ....” As he spoke, the belt came off in one long, smooth drag. He pulled at Chuck’s jeans with a grunt, the top button coming unfastened, then the next, on down. “Though I am asking myself one thing, kid.”

Chuck had his chin tipped down, watching Casey shuck off his jeans, but he shifted his gaze upward with a questioning look. “Mm?” he said, figuring again that was safe.

“I was wondering why you won’t say anything.” Needing to see his eyes while he did this, Casey kept them on his face while he placed a boot between the kid’s knees. Slowly, he stepped downward, dragging them over his shins to the floor. “Even now?”

“Huh!”

“This is the way I see it.” Casey patted the kid’s cheek, liking the way Chuck’s long dick was already bumping against his hip, “No matter how hard you keep those pretty little lips sealed, you want to suck my cock.”

“Nnmg.” Chuck didn’t move, staring until he had to close his eyes. He swallowed once, the sound of it loud in the quiet room. While the kid clutched his fists at his sides, Casey took the opportunity to bend down and take hold of the pants around his ankles. He looked up at him, liking the way the kid’s breathing had picked up.

“Lift,” Casey told him, tapping one foot and then the other. Obediently, Chuck did, and Casey divested him of the pants.

As he stood, his hands trailed upward now over the naked slim body before him until he could look into his face. The kid still had his eyes closed, the touch causing a shudder to run through his, his nostrils flaring. He seemed to sway a little.

“There,” Casey continued, his thumb stroking over his bare ribcage, up and down his smooth skin. “Like being stripped naked?”

“Humph.” Chuck placed a hand over his mouth.

Casey smiled, gauging the reaction on that sensitive spot, and when he didn’t get one, he did it again. Up, down, his thumb caressing his lower stomach -

“Ah! Ticklish!” Chuck yelped. If Casey thought he couldn’t get redder, he was wrong. “You know I am, too! Not fair!”

“Did you just say something?” Casey asked, rolling his eyes lewdly as he kicked off one boot, then the other.

Chuck straightened, a move that made his cock skim along Casey’s hip, whether he meant to or not. “Asking is not fair, either.”

“You like it, don’t you?” Leaning in to press his mouth to the kid’s ear, Casey then whispered, “You seemed to ... last night. You got all hard – kind of like now? Just by having my dick on your lips, eh?”

Another stroke along his stomach, the slide of his large body against his, and Chuck jolted. His eyes, gold-flecked in the dim light, traveled downward before looking up, and did he even know that his tongue instinctively darted out to wet his lips?

Yeah, now you’re thinking. So pretty, but so much to learn.

“Did you ever consider,” Chuck said, a few fingers touching the slope of Casey’s shoulder, “that I might’ve said something ... on purpose?”

Then he realized another thing about Chuck. This kid would never cease to surprise him.

“Did you ever think that I might’ve done this on purpose?” Casey demonstrated with his hand skidding over Chuck’s middle, tracing ribs down to his flat stomach until he was rewarded with a hitch. “Just to get you to complain?”

“Duly noted. You’re sneaky,” Chuck said, and not knowing what to do with his hands anymore, they went to Casey’s collar before dropping to the first button. “Can I?”

“No.” This was way too much fun to jump to that. Squinting at him, Casey swatted his fingers away. “Let me look at you. Before I shut you up, eh?”

“Before -? Oh.” The kid had a fine dew of sweat gleaming on his cheeks, and Casey saw his eyes close. Better yet, his cock slid along his thigh, giving away what he was too shy to say.

Close, but encouragement always seemed to work with Chuck. “Want my cock in your mouth?” Casey growled against his warm jaw, a large hand roaming over his stomach, just brushing pubic hair before changing direction. “Hm? You should ... say it.”

Chuck’s eyes drifted open, the black of his pupils were huge. “Yes.” Maybe it was part of the kid’s seduction technique – yeah, right – or trying to hide his jitters, but dammit if he didn’t lick his lips again. “I want ... oh, hell,” he added in a mutter. Still couldn’t say it.

“Knees, kid. Let’s see it,” Casey said. That was one way to put an end to his jumpiness. Though he seemed baffled as hell, Chuck trusted him. He proved it by not fighting him or tensing as Casey exerted some downward pressure on the back of his neck. “Yeah, I like to see you from there ... when you look up at me.”

All of those pleasing muscles tightened, a normal reaction, Casey figured, to being told to get on his knees in front of a man who could snap him in two. The order stuck somehow, since after a moment, the kid slowly lowered himself, the floorboards creaking under him.

“Eyes up.” Casey had to remind him, since he looked like he was still wondering what the hell had happened.

Inclining his head slowly, his gaze wandered over Casey’s body until he met his eyes. “But what about ...?” Chuck hesitated before reaching out to curl one finger around a belt loop. “Do you want me to take these?”

“You’re good, but you’re not that good,” Casey replied with a chuckle, and he poked his big toe against one of his knees that had settled into the rug. “You know how to ask really nice, though, goddess. You can keep doing that.” Hell, might as well tell him what he liked. “You’re ... pretty from here, kid.”

Chuck didn’t know what to say to that, so he looked away bashfully. He wasn’t exactly getting up, though, Casey noticed. As the kid stripped off his belt and worked on the buttons of his jeans next, Casey removed his own shirt, eyes riveted to Chuck.

Fuck, he was clueless. He had no idea that just watching him was making Casey’s dick rock-hard.

“Careful, kid,” Casey rumbled, now that his jeans opened into a folded V, revealing just part of his cock. “Don’t wanna pull off any important bits of anatomy while you’re dragging those down, eh?”

“I think I can handle it – oh, wait. Does that ... count as more talking?” he asked, being a smart-ass.

“You’re already getting your reward for that, aren’t ya?”

“Only if you shut up.” Chuck was definitely getting better at this.

That fact alone made Casey regret he wouldn’t be here to give the kid another week or so of flat to the mattress practice.

The outer garment and undershorts eased down just enough in front to release Casey’s cock, and he’d be damned if the kid’s first touch didn’t cause a shockwave to run through him. God gave him good hands. Chuck’s long fingers circled him, his thumb stroking the taut vein beneath before looking up at him.

“I think you like that ... don’t you, John?”

Casey closed his eyes briefly and let out a breath. He decided not to give him an answer or another order just yet, waiting to see what the kid would do next.

Even as the thought still rung in his head, Chuck’s hazel eyes caught his and he wet his lips again. Casey had his mouth open, ready to slyly tease the kid over how wanton that little move appeared -

“Is this what you want?”

A scant moment later, Chuck covered him with most of his mouth in one glide, not an easy feat. He took it deep to the back of his throat, just as Casey liked it – hell, he taught him that – and slid up, down. Concentrating – and oh God, keeping it slow at first - letting Casey see the glistening moisture his mouth left along his shaft, working his lips over him, his tongue caressing, increasing suction.

Oh, hell – potential? Right there’s your potential.

Casey was already knotted up by it, and they weren’t even getting started yet. When he felt Chuck moan around him, he growled in response, threaded his strong fingers through his hair in an act of reinforcement.

“That’s it ... like the way you’re working me, kid.” Casey’s jaw clenched on a deliberately slow trip back up. “Yeah .... Keep doing that.”

He couldn’t help it. The primal reaction was to jut his hips out, taking more of his warm mouth. Needed to be careful, though, after the last time. He didn’t want this to break off with the kid hacking and edgy about trying it again.

Holy God, no, because it was so fucking good this way, watching Chuck’s lean muscles ripple along his curved back, his shoulders bunching while he focused wholly on pleasing him.

Casey ran a hand along the side of his head, ruffled his fingers through Chuck’s soft hair. “Jesus ... like cock, don’t ya, kid? Oh ... you’re getting good at this ....” You want truth, princess? God, there you go. “Yeah, show me what you like, hm?”

Responding to Casey’s rough reassurance, whether he knew it or not, the kid clumsily obliged, trying to keep his mouth moving in a rhythm over him, mindless of the everything else.

“Feels good to give up control, eh? Let someone else drive for ya.” When Casey bumped his hips out with a bit more enthusiasm, Chuck made an inarticulate sound against his cock. It was part dissent at the sudden prod, but he couldn’t hide that it was also part moan at giving him more.

“Sounded like yes, kid,” Casey breathed, briefly tipping his head back. The vibration along his dick sent need scratching through his belly, but that would be no good, not yet. He had more he wanted from him, more of a keen desire to push him slightly further.

Just when Casey felt his legs start to give out, he eased himself a step away and forcibly pulled Chuck’s head back by a handful of curly hair. “Enough.”

The embarrassing slurp and a noise reminiscent of a cork leaving a bottle had Chuck’s eyes pop open in surprise. As if Casey had taken his plaything and left.

“Wh-what?” Chuck looked up at him dumbstruck, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth. “Or, maybe the question here is why?”

Not bothering to answer, Casey finished shoving his jeans the rest of the way down his thighs, past his feet, and then stood naked for a moment looking down at the confused kid. When Chuck started to open his mouth, Casey gave the kid’s cheek another little tap. “Change of plans.”

“Change ...?” Chuck put his hands on his knees and watched as Casey walked about ten feet away, over to the bed that ran along one wall. “Was there ... a problem?”

“No problem,” Casey answered, the mattress creaking as he took a seat on it.

“But I –” If Chuck seemed perplexed at the loss of a stiff dick in his mouth, the space that separated them had his brows flying under the curls over his forehead. “Um, I kind of thought we were –”

“You’re getting too good at that, kid. Not ready yet,” Casey said, eying him speculatively while he stretched.

Then he eyed him a bit more. Wondering. He liked the kid over there, naked and on his knees.

“Why – why are you looking at me like that?”

A deviously erotic vision crossed his mind, though he would bet his horse Chuck wouldn’t see it that way. But still ....

“Pancake.” Casey smiled down at him. “Want you to come over here.”

“You were the one who walked away,” the kid grumbled, growing embarrassed. He seemed to think about it as he sat hunched on the rug, but figuring he would have to comply eventually, Chuck began to rise from his knees.

“Nuh-uh,” Casey said, stopping him.

Chuck stayed still, tilting his head in question. “You just said –”

“Not like that.” Casey’s voice got throaty, and with the hope that Chuck would figure it out, he then leaned back, getting comfortable.

Still mystified, Chuck sank on his knees, but Casey could see it was a move of convenience, letting him stare, first baffled, and then gradual awareness making his eyes widen.

“Ho – hold on. You want me to ...?”

Couldn’t even say it? By Christ, that only made want it more.

Casey, observing him for a moment, had to wet his throat. “Awfully pretty from here, kid,” he said, using his voice to coax Chuck’s willingness. “There’s only way you could be prettier. Know what it is?”

“N – no?”

“Stay ... like that, eh?” One hand, pointed low and fingers curled, beckoned him to move. “I’d like to see it .... You want to, don’t ya?” Want me, don’t you?

Seeing him balk, Casey wondered if that was the line the kid wouldn’t cross.

Which meant it took all his stony resolve to withhold a look of surprise when the kid hesitantly dropped to all fours, locked a pair of tentative eyes with his, and began slowly crawling to him.

“Jesus ....” H. and Mother fucker. Maybe God didn’t hate him after all. Giving him this, right now.

Casey concluded as quick as a bullet that he could watch that for a lifetime and never tire of it. Never had he wanted something more than that stupid kid with his slow-burning eyes, giving him the willingness to trust him.

Never would he want something more.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Casey murmured, gravel in his voice. “Come here.”

It occurred to him that optical illusions could rip his guts out. Sure, as he crawled to him, Chuck looked like a naughty puppy, willful yet nervously fulfilling the order. Yet the power was on the floor, approaching like deadly tsunami. Casey knew then and there he’d kill anyone who touched him.

No will hurt you again. You’re mine.

When the kid stopped directly in front of Casey’s knees, he looked up at him with one of those unsure expressions. For the thousandth time, Casey remembered that he loved those dark eyes.

He smiled, ran a hand down Chuck’s back, then up to stroke through his hair. “God,” he whispered, since there was nothing else he could say.

“You are an evil bastard,” Chuck noted, trailing his fingers along Casey’s tight thighs and returning a half smile. “Why is it that you make me want to do bad things?”

“Only bad part was that you stopped.” As Casey’s touch moved from his hair to his jaw, he had to bend over and press a kiss to the back of Chuck’s shoulder. “The question is, why do you let me?”

Chuck frowned up at him, though he had to know that Casey had a point. But on his hands and knees and naked at his feet, with strong fingers carding through his hair, the kid must’ve found it impossible to get mad at him.

How could he? Casey’s hand begun to massage the back of his skull, fingers kneading, enticing Chuck to shut up and relax. Okay, so it was slightly difficult to do with a rigid cock bumping the kid’s jaw each time Casey shifted on the bed, but he didn’t seem to overly mind the distraction.

“Know any other bad tricks, puppy?” Casey asked, thumb touching his cheek.

That did get another frown from him. “Don’t push it,” Chuck mumbled, pressing into the space between his lover’s knees. The protection of his manhood after crossing the floor that way didn’t sound wholly resolute, however, making Casey only smile down at him. “Just because I did it that one time ... well, it doesn’t mean I’ll do it again.”

Casey contemplated the stubborn set of his chin, and he rubbed the kid’s shoulder. “Anything else you don’t plan on doing again?”

Chuck lowered his head – and bit him lightly on the upper thigh. “That? I’ll do again if you need it.”

The stubble on his jaw scraped over the tender flesh of Casey’s inner thigh, but he wasn’t about to complain. “Hoping that’s not the only thing,” Casey told him, and dammit that kid made him jump when he licked and nibbled awfully close to the jewels before moving his tongue away. “Little shit,” Casey said, letting him know he saw through it.

“But the things ... I like? Don’t mind doing?” Chuck paused, his tongue looping close to the straining heat of him, nuzzling an inch from his cock. He licked a stripe over his hard belly, and smiled as Casey’s breath drew in harshly. “Well, those are the things I’ll do again.”

The kid was a natural dick tease. No one could learn that.

“Yeah? Like what –” It broke off there, his words becoming intelligible, just as a warm wet pool of heat engulfed most of his cock. “Jesus ....” Casey swallowed, felt a guttural sound in his chest. “You little wh –”

Shit, better not. Beyond a doubt, it was hard to think or talk when the kid’s mouth opened so perfectly, suddenly sinking down on him, but Casey caught himself before that little gem slipped out. After the story of the male whore, something told him the kid wouldn’t see the humor in it.

More to the point, Casey was not willing to do anything that would make Chuck stop doing that trick with his tongue, swirling and swishing it up and down along his shaft.

“Oh God... Shit ... built for that, weren’t you ...?” Casey whispered, hoping the kid damn well knew he should not be answering right now. His hand slid around to cup his jaw, tugging gently to look into his face, needing to see his eyes. “Up here.”

“Mmph.” Good boy, he didn’t stop, just kept taking him up and down even as he kept his eyes locked on Casey’s.

“You got it, kid. Yeah, you’re getting harder ... knowing I’m going to fuck you. I like to see it in your eyes ....” God, yes, he did.

That kind of dirty encouragement seemed to work for the kid. Chuck’s tongue molded perfectly around him, his hand circling his cock and taking over where his mouth didn’t quite reach. Pulling back up, his lips stayed rounded and open on just the tip. Tasting, licking, getting it nice and wet.

 

Figuring that this was his own punishment, Casey watched him as the kid eased off, went to the more tentative approach. He didn’t know why Chuck had decided to tease the crown only but he was willing to go with it. Yeah, because Casey was flexible that way.

As he caught his lower lip between his teeth, he put a hand on the back of Chuck’s neck, but it doesn’t even register with the kid. Intent little shit when he wants to be. Chuck didn’t even look up, kept swirling his tongue around the broad crown a couple of times, then testing the underside with the tip. And he knew what he was doing, letting Casey get a good look at the movement, tongue curling under the edge of the head, and the circular swish around along his cock.

Only Chuck could make him feel this deserving. Make him feel whole.

Make him want to punch something for what he had to do.

The kid pulled back only for a brief second to gulp air, and touched his thumb to the rim of the crown, dragging it in a loop over the smooth rounded surface. “God, that’s tight....,” he heard the kid murmur, and parting his lips, he drew him in slow that time, sucking him into a place where Casey felt control slipping.

“Chuck.” Casey splayed out a hand on Chuck’s bare back, then curled it loosely through his hair. “There you are ... show me how much you like it ....”

“Mmnngh.” If the dirty talk insulted him a bit, it sure as hell didn’t stop him. The kid lost his reply by sinking straight down on Casey’s dick, lips being stretched again, taking more of him this time.

Casey couldn’t help but tip his head back, give a gentle thrust of his hips. “Like it ... when I fuck your mouth ....” He gently fisted a handful of his hair to keep the kid’s head still, wondering if this would be something he would fight. He didn’t. Though his eyes were closed, Chuck’s expression was focused, intent, his mouth open for him to thrust in, pull back, and oh God, it felt so good ....

This is what he could have if he stayed. Not just teaching the kid to deep throat him – he was damn close already and had the aptitude. Not just the sex, though he wasn’t going to deny it was smoking his brain. But more than that.

Here was someone who could touch his splintered soul, take hold of him from the inside, and not get cut by the jagged edges.

His belly clinched, need purling at the base of his spine. When did that happen? When did he so easily relinquish control, and especially to a gawky kid like this one, naked on his knees?

Couldn’t. Tonight would be about letting go, but not yet. It was about taking him over, working him out of his bloodstream. For now.

The unyielding shove on the kid’s shoulder sent him backwards on his ass. His hands landed on the floor with a thump, bracing himself while he stared up at Casey, first in shock and then obviously ruffled by the push.

“What – what was that all about?” Chuck twisted his head to give him an accusing look. “I thought – I thought you said I was good at that!”

“Too good,” Casey answered. “And if you’re too good at your job, I won’t be able to fuck you now.” He leaned down, his hand holding the kid’s jaw. “You’d like that wouldn’t you? Getting fucked?”

The blush nearly pooled like light around him. “I - then why are you looking at me like that? If that’s what you want, then -”

“Me? Heh.” Casey snorted. “Patience, puppy. Trying to decide how this time.”

The kid sat up taller and cocked a brow at him. “First, I’m not your puppy, and second, unless you’re holding out on me, I’m pretty sure there’s only one way this happens.”

“You think so, hm?” Casey rose from the bed, eyes gleaming in the half-dark. “’Cause I think of about a half dozen ways, stud, even in the confines of this tiny room.”

Peering up at him, a brief uh-oh crossed his face, and the kid held his breath for a moment. It had to be a bitch, wanting something, but unable to ask. “I – you’re a very confusing man,” Chuck said, glancing at the rug. “I suppose this is one you’re thinking of? But I should tell you, I’m not going to do it on the floor.”

“Afraid of some rug burn on those delicate cheeks?” Casey strolled over to him, and the kid had to crane his neck to maintain eye contact. “Lucky for you, that isn’t one I considered.” He got down on his haunches to meet those beautiful yet turbulent eyes. “Though .... I could –”

“No, no, no.” The kid scrambled to his feet, a maneuver that could’ve broken off his dick if it were any more graceless. “That’s okay, really.”

Casey rose as well, a chiding remark on the tip of his tongue. But when the kid straightened to his full height and stood closer, the amusement was gone. Might’ve had something to do with getting a look at his long cock, so stiff it barely moved. Holy God, he’s a beautiful kid. Completely oblivious to his quirky handsomeness.

“A dozen ways?” Chuck crossed his arms, shooting him a dubious look. “I think you’re full of it, sometimes. What else do you have ... Big Guy?”

Casey was silent, mulling that over. Sure as hell sounded like a challenge. He took his time to study him, trying not to smile at the outright blatancy of it. “Really, kid. Did you just -”

“Oh, crap,” Chuck said, finally thinking with the curly head, because even the kid looked shocked that the reproof had come from his mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that!”

“’What else’? You wanna know, eh?” Casey crooked a finger at him. “Come here.”

“That’s okay.” Chuck smiled anxiously, careful not to meet his eyes, and he backed up a few steps. “I’m fine here ... uh, over by the ...chair.”

“Oh, don’t hide now, brown eyes,” he said, and gave him a narrow look. “I’d like to show you a few things.”

“Like – oh – whoa –” As Casey filled the gap, Chuck was interrupted by a hand wrapped around his upper arm, hauling him close until their hips met. “Oh. You meant here.”

“Smart boy,” Casey said. Pressing him to his body, he felt every inch of the kid, all of his lanky limbs against Casey’s bare flesh taut, nearly strumming. There was no hiding that this had the kid tense. “Want to hear the first one?”

Those dark eyes were so close, holding just enough curiosity in them. “I don’t ... I think ....”

“Because I was thinking maybe I’d take you here – up against the split logs.” Casey tugged at his arm, pleased that he didn’t feel Chuck pulling back from him. They stopped at the bedroom wall, and to be certain the kid understood, Casey planted his feet on the outside of Chuck’s, a pair of thick arms boxing him in on either side of his body. “That’s one way.”

Chuck glanced at one of Casey’s arms and anchored his back to the wall. “But I can’t really see –”

“Yeah? Seeing isn’t the point, kid.” To show him, Casey spun the kid around to face the roughhewn slats. “There. Maybe you can rest your forehead against the wall ... while you’re asking me nicely to ram you from behind. Would you like that?”

“Ask you? Are you crazy, because I would never –” But as Chuck sputtered his indignation at that, Casey slid an arm around his waist and used the grip to pull him close, steering his butt into Casey’s groin. His dick slid into the crease of his ass, and Chuck breathed in sharply at the stimulation, one hand convulsing on his lower belly. “Casey –”

The kid didn’t take it lower, didn’t touch himself, which was good. It saved Casey from having to reprimand him for his unconscious eagerness. It was too soon, though his dick in that tight channel almost made him want to change his mind about showing him ‘what else’.

“I think you’d like it,” he rumbled low against Chuck’s ear. “You’d put your ass out there for it? Wouldn’t you, kid? You’d feel it deep, even if it means sticking your hind end in the air like an eager doe waiting for the stag.... Is that it?”

“I would never do that!”

“Must’ve been someone else with mop hair and a long dick I fucked into a tree today, then, hm?” God, he was getting harder just thinking about it.

“It ... it was an accident.”

“An accident is a broken wheel on a coach.” Casey grunted and kicked Chuck’s knees out wider. “Getting a dick where you want it so badly is just a good fuck, pancake.”

“When – when you step back? I’m going to kick your ass for that!”

“Really. Your encouragement ... near the end today? I liked it.” Watching the kid blush as he remembered something about please keep doing that, Casey kissed the warm curve his neck, then ran his knuckles down the center of his back. “And making demands?”

“I would never!”

“Mm. And I like you when you push back.”

“You like me, period,” Chuck contended, the lips at his throat getting him to calm down. He took in a steady breath and let it out slowly. “Now what?”

“Turn around.”

The kid wavered, uncertain. When he saw the reluctance, Casey put pressure on his hip, and he seized an earlobe between his teeth. “Do you really think this is going to hurt?”

Chuck closed his eyes, his hands clenching into fists on the wall. “You know I don’t.”

“Then turn around,” Casey said, lips wetting the spot he had just bitten. “Don’t want to tear you up. Just give you something to remember. A reason to be good.”

Chuck slanted a questioning look, swallowed. It took him a moment but he complied, turning to find Casey still clutching his hips, steering him in reverse until his lean back and shoulders were wedged to the wall.

“Ah. Oh, hi ...?” the kid stammered, confirming his tender ass had to feel the unsmooth surface behind him. Nervous and a little breathless, his wide eyes met Casey’s. “You’re ... you’re going to make me regret asking that, aren’t you?”

“You wanna know what else?” Casey replied mildly, and he swept his glance downward. Whether the kid realized it or not, he had jutted his hips out, his dick trying to rub the side of Casey’s thigh. “Other ways I could fuck you?”

“There’s no right answer to that.” Chuck waved a hand towards the bed. “But I’m good really, and I – I’d like to retract any further -”

“Well, I’ve got another one for you kid,” Casey said, holding his hips with both hands. “You could wrap those long legs around my middle? Like you did last night, when I carried you out of the tub?” He trailed his fingers, going a little lower. “Except it’d be my cock and this wall holding you up.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary.” A pair of startled brown eyes shifted to Casey’s hand teasing his lower belly, and whatever picture his vivid imagination fed him, it made the kid’s sweaty palms land on Casey’s shoulders. “Besides, I – I’m not ... that flexible?”

Casey waited, but he definitely did not push back on him. That alone was promising. “Your job is only to keep your back to the wall, legs tight,” he said against his cheek. “And hang on.”

“Hang on?”

“Mm. I’d make sure you’d stay there, riding my dick while I banged you against the wall.” Since his neck felt so warm and good, Casey nuzzled him there. “You’d like it. Wouldn’t even feel it against your back. Think you can you handle that?”

“I don’t want it that way tonight." Confusion stirred in those eyes. "Wait. That came out wrong.”

Casey lifted a brow and chuckled. “Some other time, eh?”

The kid cleared his throat. “Or – or on the kitchen table, if that’s what you wanted to suggest next.”

“Nah.” Casey kept his mouth to Chuck’s ear, barely breathing it. “I was going to suggest ... bending you over the footboard.”

“Footboard?”

Good. That had him wondering. “You can picture that, can’t you?” Casey brought a hand down and touched his balls, rolled them in his palm. Enough to get his attention, but not nearly enough to get him off. “I’d stand behind you .... Put your head down on the blanket ... get your ass up. You’d be waiting for me ....”

“I – er, I see.” Chuck’s hands were still on his shoulders, and perhaps he didn’t realize that his fingers eased into more of a rhythmic stroke than a clutch. “So, suffocation? Is that what you wanted to show me?”

“You’d be fine,” Casey assured. “Actually, you’d like it, kid.” He leaned into him, his hand still rolling his nuts, just that, avoiding where the kid had to want it badly. “I could be rough ... or gentle, however you want it ... take you on a good ride. You’re imagining it, aren’t you?”

Chuck closed his eyes, the mixture of erotic heat and a steady touch making his head tip back just a little. “N-no.”

It was so easy to keep going, talking in his ear, dirty whispers he seemed to like. “By the time you feel yourself ready to come, you’ll let me to pummel that sweet little ass, won’t you? Spread you out? Yeah, you’d ask for it.”

“I don’t ask!”

“- and then forget later what you told me to do?”

“God, Casey.” Listening to the cadence of Chuck’s breathing, Casey knew his hand on his balls, teasing him but not giving the happy glide, was taking care of any wilting inhibitions. “Can’t you?” Touch my cock, he couldn’t say.

“Is that good, kid?”

“Mm.” Chuck groaned as he started to rock. It was nice to see the tip of his tongue come out to wet his lips. “You should – c’mon.”

“I’d be hard enough for you,” Casey went on, soft and husky, ignoring the little sound of frustration at the fact he hadn’t slid his hand around his dick. “I’d hold your head down so I can thrust hard. After a while, I’d take my hand and fist your cock.” Capitulating, Casey gave him one long stroke, up and down. “You’d pump into my hand, making your ass come back on me ... yeah?”

Chuck squeezed his eyes shut and wrapped his hand around Casey’s, steering his grip up the velvet shaft and back down. “That. Jesus,” the kid breathed, the friction making his cock jump. “There, ‘kay?”

“Nuh-uh. Not yet.” Casey freed his hand easily and went back to his balls for one last light squeeze before he dropped his palm to the kid’s hip. “You wouldn’t even know it, that at the same time, you’d be pushing into me. Trying to ride my cock.” He kept his voice low. “Feel so good for both of us, hm?”

“You’re ... stopping?” Chuck asked, looking down.

“You stopped listening.”

Sulking with displeasure, the kid lined his back against the wall and folded his arms over his chest. “You know what, John? I’m beginning to think one of the ways you haven’t told me about yet is talking me to death.”

“Eh?”

“Yep.” Moving more quickly than Casey thought possible, the kid took him off guard by ducking under one of the larger man’s elbows and freeing himself from the cage of his arms.

Casey turned and squinted over at him, watching as the naked kid backed up to the bed. “Going somewhere, brown eyes?” he asked.

“Still faster than you,” Chuck had the balls to say. Keeping his eyes fastened to Casey’s, he took another step back, lobbing a crooked grin at him. When his knees hit the feather mattress, the kid sat down, making the bed rustle and squeak. “You should shut up now, because this is what I was thinking.”

Casey’s eyes snapped at his exclamation, and he uttered a short laugh of surprise. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Get over here, John.” He lowered his long lashes and stretched, lying down on the bed, an arm over his eyes to shield them from the kerosene lamp on the table. “I’m wondering if you can do only half the things you talked about.”

Casey looked down at the bare sinewy body, sprawled out before him on the bed. Every detail, from the slope of his smooth skin, to the light covering of silken hair between his pecs that made a dark arrow down his belly had Casey strolling in closer.

One step, two steps. He put a knee on the bed, and moving his attention leisurely up his six foot plus slender frame, he wanted to consume him, be consumed by him, not giving a damn that it happened.

“Yeah? You know something else? Getting your brains fucked out every twelve hours or so has been good for you, boyo.” He reached into his pants, curled on the floor, and slipped the tin of lube from the pocket. “It’s given you more of that sass I’m quite partial to.”

Without troubling to lift his head, Chuck lengthened his legs and arched his back, that perfect curve of his cock bobbing as he moved. “Can you turn out the light, Casey?” he asked, tipping his chin and exposing the tender hollow of his neck. The small grin visible beneath the crook of his arm dazzled. “All of this talk is making me sleepy ....”

“Sleepy,” Casey muttered, not being able to withhold his touch any longer. His fingers dragged over the rise of his chest, the tapering stomach, the rangy upper body flexing under his hand. “You little shit. You think I don’t know what you’re doing, eh?”

“Uh, you’re pretty smart,” Chuck conceded, peeking out from under his arm. “I’m fairly certain that at this point, you know exactly what I’m doing.”

“Yeah?” Lowering his head, Casey dropped a hand on each of his hips. “So what am I doing now?”

“Now?” Maybe having second thoughts, Chuck tensed at the feel of Casey’s fingers clinching, holding him down to the mattress. “You’re – ow! No biting!” The words were a part gasp, part startled laugh. “Ah – not fair!”

Of course he was going to make him suffer in a very sensual way for the back talk. Didn’t the kid know that by now? Feeling his hips squirm under his palms, the lank muscles becoming ramrod stiff, Casey kept his hands splayed over his middle, increasing the pressure each time he wriggled.

He looked pretty damn good, laying there, now staring up at him. Good enough to make Casey want to bite him again. So he did, his teeth scraping, nibbling and mouthing him over the hip bone, the tender inner thighs and narrow calves.

“You’re ... killing me.” Every inch of Chuck stirred as Casey’s lips and teeth kept him hard, pressing him down as the kid tried to lift his hips. There was a place his lips never quite reached, coming close, skidding over the kid’s abdomen to his hip bone, but never leaving a wet track there.

Those dark eyes flashed with response, something hungry and frustrated. The kid’s hands dug into Casey’s shoulders, but they both knew the grip wasn’t meant to push him away. “John ... damn you. You know that’s not ... not fair!”

“God, love your body,” Casey spoke in a growl against his flat stomach, left another soft imprint of his teeth. “Love to hear the way you breathe faster when I do this ....”

It was a suitable punishment for his goading, but that had nothing to do with it. The truth was, Chuck had wheedled under his skin, burrowed deep. And the only reminder of his dereliction, both of theirs, would be the fine red marks over his flesh, fading with memories. A sweet retribution, the kind that had the kid attempting to buck his hips up, rub his cock against the side of Casey’s jaw.

Want more, don’t you?

He didn’t stop until he heard the kid have to stifle a protest, his body tightening at the stimulation. Restrained, controlled, and held down for his desire. The whole mess was hot and wrong, and had a rushing noise between his ears, hearing him submit to this.

“Have enough talking, kid?” Casey asked.

“You are a confusing and evil man for that question.”

“Am I.” Casey smiled and crawled over him, his hands on either side of Chuck’s shoulders. He positioned his head directly over the kid’s, making him look up into his eyes. “Suppose you think this is evil, too?”

“Wh – not that I want to know – ah. Hey.” The kid’s eyes flared in surprise at suddenly loosing access to hand movement. He pulled against Casey’s grip and sucked in a breath with a faint ‘oh, shit’ when it made the larger man press him deeper into the bed.

Casey held him, arms bent up in surrender, wrists pinioned under his hands. He spread his thighs with his knee and fastened him spread-eagled to the bed. Holding the kid hard against him, without saying another word, he could the feel the thud of his heart, hammering on his ribcage.

Confusing, the kid had said. It was. With their hearts tied securely, the same as rope burns over their chests, it was uncertain where one beat left off and another began.

“Steady, kid. I only said it was going to be rough this time. I didn’t say you were going to get what you wanted, just because you wanted it.”

“You did this earlier today! On the blanket? Holding me like this?” Chuck stopped to wriggle his wrists. “Why are you doing this? Haven’t we already established that I can’t get loose?”

“That time earlier today, I was holding you so I wouldn’t pummel you for not answering my questions.”

“Very nice.” Chuck heaved a breath.

“This time,” Casey said, touching his lips to the kid’s forehead, “It’s because ... I wanna fuck you so hard that you taste me in the back of your throat. Fuck you hard enough to hobble your legs.”

He could hear the kid gulp. “That’s not even ... possible,” he argued. “I know for a fact – I read it in a textbook, okay - that the average man’s penis is only six inches when ....” Chuck peeked downward and cleared his throat. “Forget I said anything! Geez!”

“Average. Eh.” Casey smiled against his humid temple. “Lucky boy, aren’t ya?”

“This isn’t going to be fun for either of us if you kill me. Oh. But relatively less fun for me.”

When Chuck turned his head to the side, looking at a pair of their joined hands, Casey buried his face against the loose waves at his ear. “Can’t have that, pancake,” he murmured, lifting the kid’s wrist over his head. “I could make it look like suicide, though.” As an afterthought, he added with a sly grin, “When I’m done of course.”

“You dick.” Chuck huffed at the helplessness of his position, but his eyes gave away the laughter at Casey’s joke. “What makes you so sure I haven’t figured out a way to get out of this? Maybe throw you off the roof?”

Casey traced his bottom lip with the tip of his tongue, his eyes getting smoky and intent. “You’re pretty good to have around, kid. I could get used to it.”

But that kind of thinking toed right up to the line Casey had promised not to cross. The kid had made him vow not to say it. Not to take it further than that, dwell on any implied commitment to return to the farm someday.

For dredging it up, Chuck had begun to wriggle his hands with more fervor, glowering up at him. “Are you going to get off me?” he asked. “I – I can’t really move if you’re ... crushing me like this.”

“Should’ve thought about that before you opened your smart ass mouth.”

“I thought you liked it!”

Casey lowered his face, breathing in the scent of him, lips touching the soft line of curls at his neck. “I like fucking you through the mattress way more than that.” Since he was at the point where his hard-on wanted the action urged along, he scooped up the other wrist and pinned both of them under one big palm. “Be a good boy. Stay like that, eh?”

“Hey! I thought you were letting go?” Jerking his head, the kid tipped his chin up to survey his predicament. His arms formed a triangle over his head where his wrists were held together, pressed to the pillow under very strong fingers. “Please?”

Casey looked away from those pleading eyes, avoiding his girly dark lashes, or the way they accentuated his chocolate irises. “Don’t try that shit with me this time. And you can hold back that smile, too. Won’t work."

Chuck’s fake smile faded and he wiggled his fingers. “Why are you doing this?”

“Needed a free hand to get the lube,” Casey explained, reaching over to the small table next to the bed, snatching the tin.

“So do I!” The kid wrinkled his nose as he thought about it. “The hand part, not the lube part.”

“You won’t need them. Your job is easy tonight, pancake,” Casey explained, slicking a few fingers. “You get to the lay there, squirm on my dick real nice-like, and make those little noises for me.”

“I don’t ... make noises,” Chuck answered stiffly. “And what if I want to touch you? Have you thought of that? It’s a little hard with if you hold on to - oh.” While the kid babbled, Casey found his anus with a finger. Now he got to watch his face as Chuck writhed and his teeth sunk into his bottom lip. “Oh. Mmngph .... God, Casey ... do that ....”

Casey’s hand tightened on his wrists infinitesimally as his finger traveled deep between the cleft of his ass cheeks, brushing the rim. Circling, testing, dipping in to one knuckle, and no matter what those noises sounded like, the little begging or the way the kid tried to slide down to get more, Casey refused to ram him right there and now, to slide his cock in deep. “Still tight. I like it, but we have to work on that.”

Shit, he wanted to. Wanted to take his ass, bury himself deep within him, bury himself in the dark and feel only the slide of his body against his, every rough thrust. Had to burn Chuck out of him tonight, get rid of the scorching need, leave only flesh meeting flesh, aching penetration.

Wanted to forget.

Somehow, Casey had closed his eyes, but beneath him, he felt the kid shudder and buck against his fingers. He hadn’t stopped, despite the fact his mind had wandered. Just two big fingers, sliding in, curling, then out.

“Mmng. John –” Acting on raw instinct, Chuck inched downward in a slight movement, straining to get more of Casey in him. “God –”

“Yeah, those noises ....” Casey murmured, his lips touching Chuck’s jaw. “Fucking hungry for that?”

“Come on.” Being toyed with gave the kid a burst of strength. His hands almost fidgeted out of the hold until Casey applied slightly more pressure. “Damn you – shit. Bastard. C-can’t you? Oh ... that’s ....”

“Know the other reason why I’m holding your hands?” Casey asked, sliding two fingertips just inside the tight pucker of his anus, teasing him. “Yeah?”

The kid bucked as Casey’s fingers started to press in. “No!”

Casey pulled his own hand back, because this would make no sense if the kid was seeing stars. “Now are you listening?”

“Why – you stopped?” Chuck’s eyes sprung open, his dark brows shooting up.

Casey just looked down at him, waiting.

“As a matter of fact, I don’t know!” The kid’s face reddened and he gave one jerk on his hands. “But why would you do that?”

“Because you want to jack off so badly right now,” Casey replied, lips ghosting over his warm cheek.

“That’s – that’s not true ....”

Yeah, sure. “In a minute, I’m going to be fucking you hard. And when I’m fucking you ... that’s all I want you to feel. Just my cock. Not your hand. Or mine, touching you .... Stoking you the way you like it? You’ll have to wait for that.”

“Evil doesn’t b-begin to cover this.”

“You want to, don’t you?” Well, the answer came when Casey saw Chuck squeeze his eyes shut, felt his dick rising high against his groin. “Well, that’s not going to happen if I let you stroke your dick.”

“I don’t touch myself, either!”

Casey grunted, because the kid really had no idea how hot it was that he didn’t even know what he did. “That must be someone else stroking himself in the middle of a good fuck,” he replied.

The kid grimaced. “More talking, I see. And from you of all people.”

“More sass?” Looking down at the kid’s suddenly alert expression, Casey got on his knees long enough to grab one of Chuck’s calves with his free hand and position it over his shoulder. “C’mere, cupcake. I’ll show you.”

“Hey, easy. My leg? I hope you didn’t take that as a – whoa.” When Chuck’s eyes widened at the way that spread him, Casey moved the kid’s other knee up against the line of his chest. “Um – hang on, what’re -”

“Nice legs.” Casey squeezed his fingers into the meat of his thigh, liking the way they felt with one over his shoulder the other bent against his torso. “It’s going to be slow. At first, eh?” Taking his dick in his hand, Casey lined up to his entrance and pressed the broad head at his well-greased anus, watching Chuck’s eyes go from confusion to oh shit. “No more talking kid.”

“God -” Chuck panted it, swallowing hard. At the feel of him there, ready to push, he shifted under him and lifted his hips. “You ... oh, son of a bitch ....”

“Yeah?” Casey stared at that completely exposed face, and opened him further, feeling the quiver of his buttocks. He took a moment to savor the beautiful hard curve of his body, the breath that expanded his chest. “Want it, don’t you? You want to feel every inch of that cock inside of you?” Casey chuckled at the way the kid’s mouth moved as he felt the press of the rigid head. “Like that, huh?”

His skin was hot, Jesus, they were both so hot. Lowering his hips at the right angle, sliding his shaft in, he nearly spurted at the way it felt to be entering Chuck. With those ass muscles holding him, Casey sunk his hips again and began fucking him. Slow, easy, not the urgent ass-ramming that would reveal his lack of control. “Finally got what you wanted, kid?” Though he knew the fight was over for both of them.

“C’mon, C-Casey....” Chuck tipped his head back on the pillow, arching his hips, and pulling a bit more adamantly on his hands. “You can ... h-harder, okay?”

“Easy, tiger,” Casey demanded coolly, and yet it was killing him. “Eyes up here. I want you to look at me.”

“I ... am.” As the kid shifted his half-mast eyes, Casey worked himself in deeply, finally letting go of Chuck’s hands in order to pull the kid’s thighs up at a higher angle, forcing him to lock his legs around Casey’s back. Then he rocked, still gently, gliding into that fine ass, making the kid feel his length as they lay nearly eye to eye, chest to chest.

“Just a little more, huh? Like it?”

“Mmm ... God –”

“Yeah .... when your cock is so hard that you think you’ll go off like a volcano, I’ll still fuck you. Just like this. Easy, huh?”

It was. God, it was. So slick and dirty, but with his hips rocking him slowly to the core, Casey would have to claw the blanket not to add speed to the mix. Not to drive it home.

Letting his head drop, it took everything to keep it thick and heavy, reminding him of a symphony orchestra. How he had ended up there, he didn’t even remember, just that it took fucking forever to get to the last resonating note out of the bass drum. Yeah, a long time. Like now.

The deep male satisfaction filled him at the trembling reaction from the kid, doing it this way. Holding him by the shoulders, he thrust in until he’d have to go through Chuck to go deeper. And again, thrusting deep, push and retreat, and then drilling deep again. Making him feel the full breach and withdrawal at each stroke. He wanted more, more than moving down the passageway, getting to the root of him.

“God, you feel so fucking good.” Casey kept a hand on his shoulder, digging his fingers into firm flesh. “Want to give you everything.”

“Casey – mm.”

“Like that, do you?” It’s all so slow, goddamn perfect yet torture.

“Shi – ah.”

Time stretched out with Chuck moaning helplessly under him like there was pain, except his hips jerked, uncoordinated, grinding him into Casey. Kind of like what Casey was giving wasn’t quite enough, and maybe it wasn’t.

“Good boy. Keeping your hands down ....”

“Shut – uoph,” Chuck managed. The order that he was not to touch himself had the kid dropping his hands to his sides and fisted in the blanket, not really able to make sense of what he should be doing with them. Every thrust in, they tightened, and he couldn’t be aware of anything but being spread and the insistent slippery push ....

How long it went on like this, seconds and on and on for minutes, Casey didn’t know. Time and heat swirled in blurry fog over them, a storm so bottomless that Casey felt the kid trying to match it, felt it quivering through his body.

“That what you’re looking for kid?” Casey whispered it hoarsely, stomach muscles rubbing against his cock.

“God ....”

“Right there?” With his nose less than six inches from Chuck’s, Casey had a nice view into his expressive, every changing Fuck Faces. Gawky and adorable, and he would love to tease him about those looks tomorrow, but there wouldn’t be one of those.

One hand gripping the fold of bedcovers, Casey blinked and lowered his gaze, glad that Chuck had his eyes closed.

Don’t think. Just fuck.

“I think that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?” Leaning in, he forced him to wrap his legs more tightly around him. “Wanna take it?”

“Don’t ... stop,” Chuck said softly. He finally figured out what to do with his thwarted hands. His fingers grasped Casey’s shoulders, his face buried into the crook of Casey’s neck as he raised his hips, so willing, doing anything to get deeper penetration. “You c-can’t break me, John. Harder ....”

“Settle, kid. You’d hate me tomorrow.” More than you will.

Feeling the kid’s hunger and knowing it was insatiable as his, Casey complied with every move, every buck up into him. His dick sunk hard, pounding a little faster, because truthfully, he wanted to give Chuck exactly what he was asking for. He wanted the kid, for tonight, to float on pleasure.

“Still taking care of you ... aren’t I.”

The strain of holding a man up for this long was a physical challenge, but Casey never ran from one. And if the kid’s shaky thighs could be taken as a signal, he knew it wasn’t much longer anyway.

“Casey, I can’t –" Yes, you can. Take it. You can have anything.

With a sudden low whine and a convulsive arch of his back that pressed Casey deep like a rod of steel into his ass, the kid’s muscles squeezed on him.

“John – I –"

“Just let it go, kid.”

He had a rare moment of complete obedience. His eyes shut, and the kid released, flooding the area between their bodies with sticky, warm fluid. As Casey listened to the low whimper, he studied every twitch of his face, wanting to memorize the reaction as he came apart. Imprint the way he looked, young and lost for a minute.

Casey felt the trembling under him as he continued to ream the kid, knowing he was abusing the privilege now that Chuck had come, but wanting him to know without saying it that his own need was just as desperate.

“Oh – my God ....” Instead of letting go, Chuck wrapped his legs and arms more tightly around him and started the rocking motion again, giving more. Incited by the urgency to reach Casey’s bliss next.

That complete surrender, coupled with the willingness to keep going, was all it took for Casey. He clung to the kid, their body’s aligned perfectly, fingers burrowing in his shoulders, and thrust against him. He was close, and he was going to lose himself inside this kid one more time.

With relief and a surge of hot lust so strong it made the kid’s eyes tighten, Casey groaned out his own climax then, too powerful to stop thrusting. It knocked the breath from his lungs. The room flashed around him, like the short flare and smoke trail behind a rifled musket. Filled the room with a flood of heat.

Even now, this innocent-looking kid has kicked his ass in every way. But hell, he already had fallen, long before this moment.

When at length they slowed, a lifetime later, their heartbeat’s powerful rhythm abating, Casey lowered his head and brushed his lips against the kid’s. He was hoping Chuck would open his eyes at that, but it barely got a muffled groan. Still lying on him, he then kissed the end of the kid’s nose.

At last, Chuck brought up a hand to push back a few curls, wiping his forehead. It looked like it took some effort. “J-John?”

“Mm.” Hey, that was the best he could do since he had just made them both come their brains out.

“I think I lost feeling in my legs.” Chuck arched his back, stretching, and hissed softly between his teeth as Casey withdrew “I’m not going to be able to move for the next few days.” He gave him a weary lopsided smile and glanced down at the pool of fluid on his belly. “That means you’re on clean-up duty, hot stuff.”

“Didn’t I just do enough for you?”

“Go away with that arrogant smile,” Chuck said, a satisfied light in his eyes. “Get a wash rag, can you?”

“Who’s throwing around the orders now,” Casey muttered, though he was still grinning as he unwound one of those long legs from his back. “Anything else I can get you, princess, while I’m up?”

“I could use a drink of water – ow. Ow, ow, ow. Gentle, gentle ... I’m going to need those for walking someday.”

When Casey unglued their sweaty bodies, he rose from the bed and walked over to the wash stand. Dipping a washrag and wringing it out, he took a moment to enjoy the sight of his young lover, sprawled out in a lax pile of limbs that came from being a little roughly but well used.

“Here, you can use this,” Casey said, and he gave the cloth a light toss toward the bed.

It landed on Chuck’s stomach with a wet splat. “Gah. Cold! So cold! Geez, have you ever heard of just handing something to someone?”

The rest of the bitching was lost in a mumble as Casey climbed down the stairs. When he returned with two tin cups of water, he passed one off to the kid and went back to the washstand, found another rag to clean his genitals.

“Ready for round two?” Casey asked when he was done, the mattress sinking under his knee. He crawled over his body, looming over the kid, and waited for movement. “Or is there anything left?”

“Go to hell,” Chuck deadpanned, a slight smile touching his lips, though he didn’t bother to move the forearm over his eyes. “Geez. I’m not made out of rubber, you know.”

Not able to hide a bit of alpha wolf smugness, he was glad Chuck did not choose that moment to open his eyes. Smirking down at him, Casey knew that look would be bound to piss him off. “Didn’t mean to give you a hard ride, brown eyes,” Casey said, lightly tracing what would sure to be small bruise on his inner thigh by tomorrow. “It may take some time before you can get back in the saddle again, eh?”

Not that Chuck slept around like a whore – in truth, he lived like a monk - but Casey secretly liked the idea of the kid having some reminders that would keep him off a stray stallion if one happened to wander into his barnyard.

“Umph.” Naked, knees spread, upper body slightly pink with exertion, the kid extended his legs down to his toes and let out a sigh. Getting comfortable, he shifted his arm on his forehead to peek up at him. “What ... did that mean, anyway? What got into you?”

You, idiot.

If he said it, if he let the words loose, the keg of black powder where he kept his emotions would rupture. He wasn’t giving away the personal shit, and the kid made it clear he wasn’t to say it, anyway. Somehow, there was a line, and he wasn’t going to cross it.

But goddammit, he could handle saying good-bye, it was the kid who couldn’t handle hearing it.

“Casey, is something wrong? You have that look.”

“Is it the ‘scoot over or I’ll have to lie on top of you again’ look?” Casey reached down, pulled Chuck’s hand free from his eyes, and surprised even himself by kissing his palm. The warm brown eyes stared up at him with knowledge, already lonely. As the two men regarded each other, Casey’s jaw relaxed into a rueful grin, easing some of the tension he saw in the kid’s eyes. “Unless ... you want me to.”

That got him moving. One inquisitive glance, and Chuck shifted on the mattress, patting the spot next to him. “Shut up and get over here,” he said, returning a smile. “I need some body heat. You remind me of coal furnace.” Reaching out, he ran his fingers down one of Casey’s arm, light enough to tickle the hairs. “Or maybe ... a fire breathing dragon ... wouldn’t that be mmm perfect?”

Adjusting the cover, Casey slid along the lean strong frame, imagining that he was still inside him, curved against the back of his body as he slept. Never leaving. When he had Chuck where he wanted him, a bulky arm wrapped around the kid’s middle and tucked into the slope of his chest, Casey said, “A dragon?”

“Um-hmm, guarding its lair, sitting on a magical treasure,” Chuck answered, already sounding half asleep. “That’s why I’ll fly close to the flame ....”

Casey leaned forward then and turned the kid’s head to face him, catching his lips before he could draw back. He kissed him deliberately hard and deep, cutting him off and not letting him go further. But when he pulled back, Chuck gasping at the intensity behind it, those beautiful eyes were watching his face in the dark. And those damn words were clear as if he had uttered them aloud.

So that I can have you.

-x-

The night air in the room was chilly now, though Casey hardly took note of it. Lying on his side with the blanket rucked down to his waist, he balanced on one elbow, squinted in the dark. It was tempting, looking down at him like this, to push a few curls back from his temple, or run a hand down his chest. To gently stroke his hair, however, would wake him, and no matter how badly he wanted to do that, he’d find it impossible to leave. A mistake that could not happen.

The light of the waning crescent moon, slanting through the window, marked the angle of his jaw, his nose, splashing over his face with light. Maybe he could stay like this for another minute.

One more.

If he leaned down to kiss him, the kid’s eyes would spring open, and Casey would never leave this bed. The kiss he gave hovered, just over his lips, not grazing them. It didn’t stop him from feeling the heat of his body, the steady breaths against his cheek.

You’re beautiful. Stay just like that.

He wanted to go. Needed to go and wanted to pull the kid into the flight right along with him. Have him beside him to hold and listen to, to warm more than just his bed at night. The promise of unconditional love from someone who accepted and wanted him – but couldn’t be with him - would tear his heart out.

It made him want it more.

He swallowed. There was just his face, full lips, the almost straight bridge of his nose, and he couldn’t bring himself to be dishonest about what he wanted from him.

No matter what happens, you’re the only man I want. You have me inside you, but you’re the only man I’ll ever let inside me again.

 

It took him back to the first night, Chuck’s fear and apprehension, his own conflict and distrust almost drowning them. The kid’s shaky gun pointed at his head. A bullet that had inexplicably whizzed over Chuck’s skull. Almost killed each other ... maybe they have in a way.

Casey wasn’t sure about anything that had happened, barely able to register the pain of a gunshot and bitterness slowly transforming to words he believed, and should tell him. Give anything to be able to, to let the kid trust it enough to hear it.

I love you.

Did he? Was that what the burning ache was, like his skin being scalded every time he thought of waking up tomorrow?

That was when Casey got up to find his pants.

-x-

Casey stood up from the table and slid the worn leather notebook back into the slot. The bookcase looked orderly, and it would upset the kid to have something such as one of his books out of place.

The last thing he did was take the pocket watch from the table, slip it into his coat, and close the door behind him. Didn’t want to wake the kid, so he was careful to shut it without a sound.

-x-

As Chuck opened his eyes, he rubbed them with the heel of his hand, noticing the shadows of the low, beamed ceiling over his head. He started to sit up, but seeing that he was still naked, the cool air pulled him back under the quilt. One hand shifted to the side of the bed. It was empty.

He turned, throat swelling. The sheets felt cold on his hand. There were no muffled noises from below, someone stirring the ashes in the fire, the coffee pot grating against the top of the cook stove.

 

Chuck closed his eyes and scrubbed a hand over his face. That did nothing to drowned out the damn rooster or the shrill call of a pair of cranky robins in the white pine.

“John?” But that was it. That was all he heard, birds and his voice coming out in a hoarse croak. It indicated the one thing he already knew.

John Casey was gone, and he was alone again.

-x-Wings of Grace Chapter Twenty-Five-x-


	26. Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six (Finale)

-x-

He hadn’t expected the cast iron cook stove to be warm. He knew well enough by now that no matter how many skinny logs he shoved under the grate before bed, it would always be stone cold by breakfast time.

Chuck wasn’t sure how he felt about that. The fact that Casey’s last act under his roof was to stoke the stove before he slinked out like a dirty thief, disappearing into the darkness of the tall aspens on the ridge.

“Buddy, get down,” Chuck said, and wasn’t that just great. Now he’s back to talking to the stray feline again. “Newsflash, fur ball. You are a cat. You’re supposed to eat my leftovers, not the other way around.”

As he gently set the cat on the floor, the kid looked across his tiny kitchen table, and his breath caught in his throat. He didn’t need the reminder of the extra chair, or the memory of the man sitting there, feet propped up on the table. A leather holster dangling loose around his hips, big arms folded in front of him.

Getting up, Chuck grabbed the back of the chair and slid it over by the fireplace. There. Better, right? He sat down on the edge of his seat, put his elbows on his knees, and faced the other side of the table. It wasn’t better. Casey was gone for good, and he’d have to be happy with just his image in his mind. The shades of blue in his eyes. The tiniest hint of a smile. A devastating kiss.

None of this was helping.

 

“John?” Though the steep stairs from his bedroom were precarious on any day, today he took them two at a time, and did it without breaking his neck. Adrenaline might’ve had something to do with his sudden graceful ability. “Are you here?”

There was a long silence, broken only by the creaking of the floorboards under his bare feet. After all, it was not as if there was a nook within the cabin walls that could hide a man topping out at well over six feet tall.

“Are you out there?” the kid called out the back, peering past the firewood crib to the outhouse. More dead silence all around, but at least it wasn’t cold today. Chuck went back inside, and the obvious telltale sign occurred to him. “Casey?” he asked quietly, walking to the front door. The wooden peg next to it held the kid’s buckshot rifle and his tan ‘city boy’ coat, as Casey had called it.

Noticeably missing was the worn brown duster. A Winchester rifle. The leather pack and the holster, all gone.

“You could’ve said goodbye, John,” Chuck murmured, hardly getting the words past the jagged lump in his throat.

 

Asshole.

Well. The ache was going to sit there, and he should just get used to it. When he dragged himself out of the lonely bed, that’s when he felt it, like the pain was going to squeeze the last breath from his lungs. Everything hurt. Not only his inner thighs, or the ropes of muscles in his calves, or other places that would make him blush if he thought about it. Deeper than that. A ripping-of-the-soul kind of hurt. It wasn’t fair. It just was.

The truth?

He loved John Casey.

Shit. He fell in love. Idiot. And that big jerk! God, just thinking it, accepting the fact that he did, was as bad as dying. Why would he do something so reckless? He left everything to get away from trouble, and stepped right into it.

Okay, then. There might just be a bit of resentment there. It wasn’t fair to Casey. He could hardly blame him for his own emotions.

Don’t go, he had wanted to say. Don’t leave. But there was a dark element hanging over them that he had to endure the past few days, knowing he would have to go.

Chuck got up from the stove to check the coffee pot. Distracted, he tested it with his fingers, and he flung his hand in the air vigorously when he nearly burned himself. “Ow ... ow. Okay. I’ve handled this before,” he said out loud, just to hear his voice. “Not saying good-bye.” He gave an irritated look across the room. “But fuck you, John, for not saying it. For making me go through this again.”

A noise made him turn from the stove and tip his head to the side. He was late, he realized. The clear morning air carried the sounds from the barn, and no matter how badly he wanted to throw the blanket over his head and go back the bed, the hungry animals begged to differ.

“Oh, crap.” He set down the coffee and put the toast between his teeth, freeing up his arms to push them through the jacket’s sleeves. “Yeah, it was too much to feed the animals before you left, hm, Casey?”

Buddy just stared at him and jumped up on the table.

Chuck sighed and hustled through the door, out onto the porch. Stretching his back, he looked upward towards the ridge, to where the sun was now seeping through the trees in gilded threads of light. If there was a horse and rider on the trail, he might’ve been able to pick them out against the rock-walled, leafy path. But then again, he probably left hours ago, slinking in the night like a wolf or a bear.

Not that it wouldn’t hurt to look. Chuck pulled his coat around his middle, and shielding his eyes from the morning sun, he squinted to the east over the ridge. Nothing whatsoever moved under the pines. After a minute his shoulders slumped, and he walked to the barn. Why did he even bother?

“Out ... out. There you go,” he said, sliding the door wide. The flock of chickens, in a squawking cloud of feathers, scattered around the yard. He went inside and began the daily routine. Filling feed pails. Hauling fresh water. Things that took his mind off the pain of not saying goodbye, threatening to burst in his throat and burn his eyes.

Dammit, he wasn’t going to cry. Fuck him.

After Jackson had his fill of water and feed, Chuck took the halter and steered the stubborn horse out of the stall. He hated mucking them out, but it had to be done. “Out of the way, Jackson,” he said, and he plopped his hat on one of the posts before grabbing the pitchfork. “We do this all the time, Jack, and it’s always the same. I think -”

Chuck froze, his hand resting on the gate. Always the same. Just another day in the wonderful wilds of the west. And maybe it was.

Save for the glimmer from a gold pocket watch, left sitting on the back ledge of the stall.

“I ... it’s not. Can’t be.” Had to be. With the straw crunching under his boots, the kid stepped towards the railing and reached out, closing his fingers over the watch. He could easily identify it by the weight in his hand, or by the feel of the etchings under his thumb. Chuck didn’t even have to look at it to know it was his.

Still he did, rolling it in his palm, remembering the familiar touch. Knowing Casey had done the same, a million times over. Recognizing that was what he had left of him.

The kid had been brave all morning. Hell, he had been brave every morning for months.

That was when he leaned against a pole and felt his back slide all the way down until he sat on the ground.

Chuck’s shoulders heaved as he choked on a sob. Goddammit no, don’t do this. But it came forth in a sudden strangled burst, the rough tearing sound of the kid’s battered heart rising up to the barn’s lofty rafters.

-x-

It took a long time to wring it out of him. When he stopped shaking, he wondered how long it had been. It was blurry, after all, years since the last time he had cried. The pocket watch was the quiet push over the edge of the cliff. It was stupid, he knew, after every hardship he had weathered, for that to be the one thing.

Finally he brought his hand to the back of his neck, rubbing away the stiffness from having his head bowed and tense for so long. All right, it happened. Maybe it was a long time coming. But when he would’ve pulled it back like the other times, tried to fight it down, fight it away, he wasn’t able to do it this time. And now embarrassingly, he had sobbed like the princess Casey had often called him, and for only today, that’s what he had to do.

Cursing regardless, he fished out a rag from his pocket and wiped his nose. He should be thankful Casey wasn’t here for that spectacle. A bad ass like that? He’d never let him live it down.

“John, you thought it would make it harder. If you said that you had to go. But it doesn’t. It makes it worse.” Chuck’s voice wavered slightly, and he cleared his throat, looked down at his boots. “Thinking someone ripped your heart from your chest and they just don’t give a shit. It is worse.”

Not allowed to cry out here, kid, the big bastard had said. Okay, that’s the end of it. Eventually, Chuck sat taller, knees drawn up, one arm linked over them. One last time, he ducked his head away, swiping at his eyes and humiliated by the wetness, even though it was only lazy Jackson watching him.

“Stop looking at me like that.” As he unfolded his legs, the kid hurriedly wiped the last streak off his cheek, grabbed the pole to climb to his feet. “Just once, I had to do that, and I’d prefer it if you’d take that judgmental look elsewhere. Don’t you have anywhere else to go?”

Jackson swished at a bothersome fly with his tail. A wisp of hay still protruded from one corner of his mouth, and it seemed the talking didn’t interrupt his chewing.

“I get it, okay? Yes, it’s not your fault.” Chuck stood leaning against the pole, brushing the threads of loose straw and bits of clinging dirt from his jeans. “Your stall is ready, your highness.”

His throat still burned something fierce, but Chuck straightened and opened the gate. Then resting his boot on the bottom rail, he whistled softly, “Go on, now.”

He watched as Jackson shambled into the stall, and realized he was absently drawing his thumb over the casing of the watch again. So, this was just great. He had to stop doing that. On a whim, Chuck looked down at the timepiece and flicked the tiny clasp to open it.

A pale ivory, impossibly tiny object popped out, fluttering to the bed of straw.

“Oh – hey.” Chuck tilted his head and bent down on his knees, bracing one hand on the ground. He stared at it, dumbstruck. It was a precisely folded square of notepaper, and someone had taken great care to tuck it behind the hinged door.

“What ..?” The kid knew for a fact that it wasn’t there last night. Heck, he had sat at the kitchen table, the circular metal lid open while he prepared to remove the back case, and he would’ve noticed something like that. In fact, he had hoped to fix it last night.

A rather large interruption derailed that plan. The broad shouldered, six foot plus and non-negotiable kind of interruption. Before he could blink, he was being hauled up the stairs, not too gently either. Being stripped down -

Didn’t he just tell someone to stop doing this?

Closing his eyes, Chuck inhaled. Steadied himself. After he chased out the moment of pleasure, he refocused. He assured himself the paper meant nothing, just a fluke.

“This is what you decided to leave for me?” The kid’s wary brown eyes looked it over, and he reached out then, curled his fingers around it. Drawing a breath, he rose to his feet, carefully unfolding the sheet of paper.

When he flattened it out, the kid searched it quickly before reading the first sentence.

Shut up and listen, it began.

“What the ..?” Chuck’s brows drew together, and as he forgot everything else but the paper, he nearly dropped the pocket watch. “God, why ... that can’t be right.”

His handwriting? The kid held the scrap of paper, examining the perfect Spencerian script, vaguely wondering where Casey had learned to write. Along the margin, the kid recognized a line drawing of a feather he had doodled a long time ago. No doubt about it, the page was from one of his notebooks. But why?

With his heart starting to hammer, he turned it over, because nobody started a proper letter that way.

The other side was blank.

“I see you don’t believe in wasteful salutations.” He said it dryly, imagining Casey rolling his eyes at him for that. He’d argue it, too. ‘Why, kid, would I clutter a note with needless words - when a perfectly suitable few get the job done?’ Explaining the niceties would be futile.

He set the pocket watch back on the ledge, not wanting to drop it, or maybe to burn a few more seconds before he had to read on.

“Why did you do this?” Chuck asked, and pushing a hand through his hair, he felt his breathing pick up. He wasn’t going to faint or have one of those mortifying panic attacks, just because of a stupid piece of paper, however. Casey would never let him live that down as well. Well, if he was ever coming back.

“God, just read it,” he finally said, chiding himself. The kid rubbed a hand over his stubble and fixed his eyes on the next line.

You asked me to make a promise three nights ago, and it’s one I cannot keep.

“A promise? Which – which promise?”

Chuck went still. Some part of his subconsciousness made him look up, over his head to the loft. Just thinking of that night made his toes curl in his boots; the smell of wood, the dim light from the lantern and the wood stove. Casey’s rich masculine scent, like a light touch of bare skin.

The larger man had shown extreme gentleness with him, not in a way that was unsure or tentative. Anything but that. Rather, it was an act of his capacity to suppress his power and strength. A dare to accept something broken on the inside, though Chuck never saw him in that light. Because he wasn’t.

Among the touches, exploration of their bodies, kisses and groans, there was one other memory. Some idiot, in an act of defiance, asked him- no, ordered him - to make a promise.

It was important at the time; the promise was simple.

 

Chuck rubbed a few fingers back and forth over his kneecap. Under that mess of hair, the blindfold, down to his naked body, tension curled around him. “You’ll leave me in a few days,” the kid said, starting carefully, “and our lives will go back to the way they were … before.”

It’s dangerous to believe otherwise, less hurt, faster to get it over with.

It’s so fucked up.

Casey watched his lips and said nothing.

“My point is,” Chuck went on, the pace speeding, “that I don’t want you to tell me anything otherwise. I don’t need to hear that being with me is worth coming back for, got it? That maybe beyond this crazy week, our lives could fit together. And you may even think you’re being generous if you proposed it, just to make me think so.” A cool fingertip came up to his chest, skidded down, but stopped too soon. “You’ll think that I want to hear ’Maybe I’ll visit’ or ‘I’ll come back this way sometime and stay’. Well. Please don’t just say it. When the time comes, I don’t want to wait or wonder. Just leave, okay?

 

“If that’s what you want.”

 

Who was the coward that night? A little shamefaced for foisting that one on Casey, Chuck lowered his eyes, kept reading.

Out here, my life is far from the man you know. Some men think I’m a pretender. One who can pull off the perfect deception. They know me as a man who has a knack for becoming someone else. I wear his clothes, crawl under his skin, and sometimes get into his mind.

“God, Casey, now you tell me that?” Chuck found it hard to swallow, what with the wild imaginings making him pause. “Hold on.” He tightened his hold on the paper. “Was I a ... con job to you? Did you really – did it mean anything?”

He was almost afraid to keep reading. It took a minute before Chuck leaned his hip against the stall, and his eyes drifted downward again.

Some men think it’s a gift, and I guess I’ve used it that way. Except with you.  
But I got into a bad place once, and now getting out is almost useless. There was no reason to try, until I found your farm.

“Except ... with me?” The kid scratched his cheek as he considered it, and he couldn’t withhold the light trace of sarcasm in his voice. “Which is nice of him because that would’ve made me the biggest sucker in the county.”

Chuck looked up at the ceiling to avoid the paper for a minute, but the tactic wasn’t working so well.

There’s one man I haven’t had the need to be for a long time. Hell, kid, I forgot who he was. It didn’t mean much, and when I looked at him, I didn’t see beyond what others saw.

Then you had to fuck it up.

“Whoa.” Chuck’s head shot up. “Is he mad at me? Wait – what did I do?”

Maybe you saw something that’s not there. Maybe when you saw me, you made a mistake. You didn’t mean to look beyond the surface, or give me those eyes like you’re looking at the entire universe.

“I did not ... I would never .... Did I really do that?”

But I liked being that man you saw. I liked finding him. I liked being the one to get that look in your eyes, like you found something lost. And in a way, you did.

Chuck felt a flush on his cheeks at the candor. “Casey ... why?” He knew Casey could never say it if he were here. He’d never get this again.

I have some business to take care of. You can think of it as one more con, and I guess I’ve saved the most substantial one for last. You should know there’s a chance I may get shot trying. If I don’t come back, it’s because things didn’t work out the way I planned.

“What? Shot?” He looked away from the paper, seeing so many awful things. At least until his eyes began to burn. The kid blamed it on the air in the barn, where a perpetual cloud-like blanket of dust hung heavily. It made it impossible to breathe for a minute.

“You stupid prick!” Why on earth did he want to take a chance like that? Chuck pondered it for a minute, feeling as if a hand was squeezing his chest. “You can’t do that! I could’ve – hell, I don’t know – went with you? Helped? Something!”

I want you to wait here, the note went on, just as if Casey had anticipated his reaction. It could be a fortnight, it could be three months before I can return.

This is the part where you shut your mouth and listen: if I’m not back by the time the aspen grove on the ridge turns golden, I won’t be coming back.

Now that sounded like the bluntness he knew. Chuck lowered his head and slouched against the post. His eyes landed on the pocket watch, so he took it in his hand again, his fingers brushing the cool metal. He felt tears sting the back of his eyes – dummy! crybaby! - and he batted his lashes hard a few times to quell them. When the dust stopped tormenting his vision, he refocused them to the page.

If that happens, I want you to pack up and leave this place, go back to the home you came from.

Go back?

“Fuck you,” Chuck muttered. He looked up at the barn’s rafters. “You have no idea, John. Besides, you have no right to tell me what to do. I’ll never go back.”

It made him want to crinkle the paper in his fist, but he shook his head and got on with it.

But it’s not going to happen that way. No one yet has found the bullet that can stop me, kid. You keep your ass at this farm until I return. And I will.

I’m not leaving behind the last chance I have. I’ll take a lifetime of your scrawny ass and ridiculous smiles, whatever you can give. And as much as you are mine, brown eyes, I figured out I’m just as much yours.

Chuck blinked. Blinked again. He was not going to get teary-eyed like a fool, just because a handsome man he was certain he loved might have just told him he loved him right back. He closed his eyes and swallowed, waiting for his incapacitated senses to regain their balance. It didn’t happen. The hot flood of feeling in his stomach refused to scatter, so he forced himself to focus on final bit of handwriting.

While I’m gone, I was hoping you could do something for me. Take a look at the pocket watch, since you seem to have a knack for fixing things that are broken. I’ll be coming by this way again, you see, and when I do, I’ll be claiming what’s mine.

 

That was it? That was how he ended it? Chuck hurriedly flipped the paper over again, but no magic had added further explanation to the message. Claim what’s mine? It made the kid flush, remembering Casey’s usual way of saying that, which involved grabbing a handful of his jeans and giving a possessive squeeze of his ass.

“God, Casey, how could you do this? Or better yet why?” Because for some reason, he was just as afraid. Of someone. He’d never admit it, but he was.

Pushing those thoughts away, the kid folded the paper neatly and slipped it in his pocket, biting back his sense of loss. Even if it was temporary.

Maybe.

Did he really have to think that last part? The whole gut spillage from a man who never did that was already making his head throb.

“Okay, back to work.” Chuck picked up a pail and reached down to close the stall gate. It was then he stopped in his tracks and squinted at the ground. His eyes caught something that didn’t belong, buried there in the straw, and he set down the pocket watch on the ledge to get a better look at it.

A scrap of cloth? Now that was odd. He didn’t remember losing anything.

“What ... what is that, Jackson?” Putting a hand on the horse’s neck, the kid stepped around him and kneeled in the straw. He pawed at the loose stalks gingerly until they revealed a small cloth sack, tied in a knot at the mouth. It was plainly bulging with something.

“Now what?” He lifted it, giving the sack a tentative shake. The tie came loose with a pull. Out poured a stream of coins, the first few landing in the straw before Chuck could react. He jolted, a flicker of shock widening his eyes, and after the sudden panic, caught the rest in his outstretched palm.

Money. At least a hundred dollars’ worth, enough to keep him in provisions for at least ... until the heart-shaped aspen’s leaves turned to molten gold. There was no note or explanation, but Casey was the type to believe that needed no additional interpretation. Clearly, he expected Chuck to use it to survive. Shut up and take it.

I’m going to do everything I can to keep you safe.

“Jesus, Casey.” He sat on his haunches and poured the coins carefully back into the sack. “I can’t keep this.” Could he? The source of the cash was murky at best. Cons? Shady dealings ... maybe with guns involved? Oh, God. Talk about getting into something, eyes wide open.

Chuck knotted the top and rose to his feet. Two choices, really. He could use the money, a gift that may have come from dubious sources to begin with, and make something good of it. Use it to persevere.

Or he could bury it in the straw, take his chances ... and in one scenario, let Casey find his shriveled skin and dried-up bones in the loft. Without a doubt, Casey would then find a way to kick down the Pearly Gates, take him by the scruff of the diaphanous robes – because he had always pictured white diaphanous robes ... and puppies – and kick his ever-loving, scrawny, insolent ass for not using the money in the way he had Goddamn well intended it to be used!

“Ho – holy ....” His dark brows shot up. Chuck quickly stuffed the coin sack in his pocket. “I guess I’ll live with the guilt of spending your money,” he said. “It beats being humiliated in front of that audience.”

Closing the stall door, he took the pocket watch from the ledge and managed a smile. As he recalled Casey’s directive, the kid turned it in his hand, opened the hinged door and idly ran his thumb over the round glass crystal.

His grin broadened, crooked and beaming. The grin that could force Casey to grumble and cover his eyes.

The one Casey loved.

A quiet tremble ran through him, like a warm hand had laid at his nape, ruffled his hair that was getting unruly over his collar.

Fix it.

He slipped the watch into his pocket. He would. Anything forgotten and abandoned, anything broken on the inside, well, he knew that’s what he was good at. Chuck could put it back together.

-x-

His life seemed to be assuming the old normalcy, which meant he had fallen into the banal routine before a rugged stranger arrived on a horse.

Days were not measured in the way they were back home or the strict pattern he followed when he was at the university. They fell together like bricks, one trailing the other to top off a wall. Day and night. There were chores to fill them, lots of chores. Late spring was planting time, and already the tiny seedlings he carefully buried in dark earth were beginning to sprout.

Most evenings, the kid tinkered up in the barn loft, but there were nights he fell in bed directly after dinner, exhausted by the day’s work.

There was a chance it was the exhaustion of wondering and waiting that wore him out, but the kid tried to push those ideas away. The dull ache in his chest hung there, poking harder some days, on other days giving him just a twinge, maybe putting him under the false illusion his heart would heal with time.

He shouldn’t think that way. If there was any person who could find a way back, Casey would be that one.

Having found a tiring yet livable routine, the kid counted off the days by the most significant event of the week. Going in to town to visit Morgan, every Monday without fail.

It had been three trips since Casey left him. Tomorrow would make it four, the fourth trip into town alone.

Chuck told himself there were still plenty of long days stretching in front of him before the aspen grove turned honeyed, quaking with amber leaves. Weeks before Casey may come down the ridge again, his clothes softly dusty, face a bit scruffy, the smell of worn leather and woods on his coat ....

He really had to stop doing that.

The first time he had returned to town after Casey’s departure, Morgan asked if he was coming down with influenza. Great. Now he looked like a sick moping puppy dog, of all things. His friend teased him gently about the lack of glowing cheeks, but whatever he saw in Chuck’s face after that, he never brought it up again.

The next week, Morgan offered to close up his shop early that day and ride back with Chuck to the farm. Share a dinner and man-talk, he said. Well, that confirmed Morgan knew something was up, and there was no chance he would let his best friend return to the farm to grill him.

That was the place the kid felt he was the weakest. He could feel him there. Still.

It was as if Casey’s shadows still lengthened in the barnyard, the large man helping with the chores, feeding the horses. He still felt him in the cooler evening air, or within the heat of the glowing coals when the fire in the stove burned low.

At first, it was almost disconcerting, scary how close he seemed at night. Other times, Chuck swore that he almost felt the heat of a big body sidling up to him behind his chair, or a warm hand passing over his hair while he worked, head bent over the latest project.

Never had he felt his presence more than the night he fixed the pocket watch. Fixed it, patched it up, renewed it, whatever. He did it. Watching the gears and wheels spring to life, the narrow arms begin to sweep the dial, Chuck smiled and looked up across the table. Straight into the empty chair.

What the hell was wrong with him? He had half-expected to see Casey, still stoic yet eyes gleaming with pleasure, telling him in a deep teasing voice that maybe he was good for something else after all.

Before Chuck could return the good-natured tease, Casey would get up from his seat, come around the table and tug the kid up to him. Eyes level, bodies touching, the larger man would press him against the table, and would then remind the kid of the first thing he was good for.

Though Casey teased about that, Chuck would stop minding it at that point.

A hand cupping his jaw, he’d kiss him, making his breath hitch in his throat, holding him securely about the waist until Chuck would feel himself sag against Casey’s broad chest. It was handy, having a boyfriend as sturdy as the scrub oaks.

Yeah. That’s what would happen. He’d gently taste his unresisting mouth, dissolving the words before the kid could stammer out another. Finding himself pinned to a hard surface, Chuck would be gasping when Casey at last pulled back, his vision dominated by those clear sky-blue eyes. Their faces close, he’d then scoop him up, climb the stairs, whispering every illicit thing they would do over the course of the night.

Scoop? My. God.

Get a grip!

He’d gotten better at closing out the memories during the work day, which was why he tried to work all the time. But being scooped off his feet? If Casey got even a whiff of these daydreams -

Jackson’s impatient whicker disturbed the kid from his thoughts. “Sorry, boy.” Chuck stooped to fill a pail of chaff, the bucket clanking against the gate as he opened the stall. “Here you go. Double portions – and you know what that means. No complaining or bickering on the way to town tomorrow, hm, Jack?”

He rubbed the horse’s long neck, expecting Jackson to do the same thing he did every day when Chuck set the pail in front of him. Typically, the horse sniffed the chaff, lifted his head with a look disdain at the lack of quantity, and dove in the second Chuck turned his back. Hey, he was lazy, not stupid, the kid figured.

It wasn’t the usual reaction. When Chuck strolled over to get the water pail, he was halted by a nervous whinny-sound from Jackson. “What is it, boy?” the kid asked quietly. “You’re hungry, aren’t you? I’ve never known you to turn down breakfast.”

It struck him as odd that the horse moved away, restless and ears pricked forward. As Chuck approached, Jackson stamped and threw his head back, a move puzzling enough to make the kid stop dead in his tracks rather than get his head kicked off.

“Jackson ....” Chuck carefully backed up a step. “Hey, hey, now,” he soothed, not really knowing how to soothe a horse and he guessed he was doing it all wrong. “Settle down, guy –”

That worked about as well as expected. A pair of hooves rose in the air and lashed out. The slice was a good three feet distance from Chuck’s head, but he jolted and fell back anyway until he felt the stall door hit his spine. That hit reminded him he was in an enclosed place with a nervous animal that outweighed him ten times over.

“What the hell has gotten into you?” Chuck arched a brow. Common sense had him reaching for the gate, knowing that he needed to get on the other side of it. “Stay! Er, stay down, Jackson.” He made his tone authoritarian at least, despite sounding ridiculous. “You’re acting like you’ve seen a ....”

Oh hell. Chuck has never been this slow. It took until now to have a pristine moment of clarity.

He’s afraid of something. There’s something in the barn that has him spooked.

A bear. Shit, it had to be a bear – or a wolf! It could be a wolf.

God, he left the barn door open. Chuck knew he did, but they never came this far down from the ridge in daylight. With his heart pounding against his ribs, he breathed out, telling himself to keep his movements controlled.

Easy, steady. His eyes scanned the stall for possible weapons he could use – should he throw something at it? A bucket? Because, crap, that’s all there was.

Bending down - slowly, keep it slow – he grabbed the handle of the bucket, his raw nerves making the fine hairs on his neck stand up. He stood, ready to pivot and toss –

“Boyo,” a velvet voice from behind rumbled.

“Ca -” Only the first syllable sounded before his voice cracked inelegantly. Chuck dropped the pail, spinning around towards the barn door. “You’re – ba – oh ....”

Had he thought this through, he wouldn’t have started to blurt a name until he recognized the chiseled jaw, sensual lips, and tall, powerful stance.

Not that the strange man standing in the opening of his barn didn’t have the last one covered. In spades. If anything, and somehow God, how would this happen twice? - he had several inches of height and shoulder breadth on John Casey.

It took a moment for Chuck’s brain to register the shock of seeing a stranger in his barn. Or maybe it was the guns. Big scary guns. Shiny and black, and most noticeably, pointed at him.

“Oh, not good,” he mumbled under his breath. When his capacities returned, a myriad of emotions chased one after the other across his face. Bewilderment was there to be sure, hastily pushed aside to make room for alarm, then to panic, and finally to I’ve got to get the hell out of here!

Well. Maybe his brain began to work again, because one thing he was certain of was that trying to run with guns trained on him would not be his wisest move. Perhaps his last, and he had no intention of dying among a flock of non-laying hens and an ornery horse from the Battle of Bull Run.

God, do not let me wet myself in front of these men.

Men.

In fact, Big Bear had friends with him. At the moment, one of those friends standing to the left and a few feet behind the huge man was smirking at Chuck.

Chuck immediately labeled him Rotted Teeth, if only to differentiate him from Scar Nose, the one to the Bear’s right who had ugly, deep ridges that ran over one of his cheeks.

“Don’t you know, laddie,” the giant man said, a brogue accent rolling thick off his tongue, “never take a metal pail with you to a gun fight, eh?”

Chuck winced.

Rotted Teeth barked a laugh. “Doesn’t look like he’d even know how to shoot. Looks like a damn farm boy.” The man, wiry with a squint, considered him for a moment and said, “Or a Miss Nancy.”

Big Bear, the Irish man who obviously called the shots – why did he even think that word? - raised a hand in a gesture of dismissal. Rotted Teeth immediately shut up. “Be a good boy, now.” He clicked his tongue in annoyance, then eyed Chuck speculatively. “Lift your hands. Keep them away from your pockets. I don’t want my boys here to get nervous.”

His pockets? The only item he had in his pocket was Casey’s family pocket watch. Carrying the timepiece with him had become a habit of late, a comforting one that reminded him of a promise and having hope. As if using that as a weapon would do any good? Throwing it? Even if he went for the head, the kid’s aim was still sketchy on a good day.

Something told him they could get off a shot before he could knock the Bear unconscious. No, Black Bear, Chuck thought to himself, because, well, look at him. Who wears a knee length black topcoat out here?

The tall man shook his head, and then sauntered in a leisurely fashion towards the stall where Chuck was standing. The kid fell silent, getting a good look at him. Whatever illegal dealings he was running, it had to be going really well for the man by the looks of his neat linen shirt and tweed trousers. The ensemble came complete with matching thugs for hire, and Chuck guessed those kinds of accessories didn’t come for free, either.

He had to wonder why Black Bear didn’t have his sidearm unholstered, but as the kid’s brain began to click into gear, he knew that the tall stranger didn’t need to be bothered with those details. If he simply raised his finger and gave the signal, the ugly book ends would shoot without question.

“Okay ... I’ve got to ask,” Chuck began haltingly, slowly raising his hands. “Why are –”

“Shut up.” Scar Nose’s face screwed up and he turned to the huge man. “Want me to shoot him in the leg?”

“No need for violence, really! I’m unarmed, so you – you have nothing to worry about. Even the pail isn’t loaded!” He tipped it on the side. “See for yourself. Empty.”

All three men gave him a flat look.

Rotted Teeth cracked a smile and turned to the leader. “Arm?”

“That won’t be necessary. Yet,” the man added, not taking his eyes from the kid.

“See, that’s what I mean,” Chuck insisted, hoping they didn’t notice his hands shaking. “You can see that I don’t have much, but ... I can’t stop you either. You can take what you want and leave.”

All right. Not too bad. His voice only broke a little at the end.

“Tsk, tsk ....” The man cast a reproving glance around the barn. “We’re not after your meager belongings, boyo.”

“Oh.” Chuck shook his head dully – it was probably best not to process the insinuation. “Then what do you want?” he asked, but hearing his own words, a sickening ooze settled in his stomach.

This could not be about him. It wasn’t possible. Nobody knew.

“Are you sure he’s smart?” Rotted Teeth asked.

Chuck grimaced and attempted to sidle backwards. Just perfect. Now his hands were visibly shaking. “Smart? You – you definitely have the wrong guy. I struggled with school!” Well, it was almost true. Beating out Bryce Larkin for the Harvard class of 1881 Valedictorian was a struggle. “I only made it through by–”

“’Nother question.” Scar Nose paused to spit on the straw. “Are you sure we can’t shoot him?”

“We are still talking about the leg, aren’t we?”

“Shut up!”

“It’s about my horse isn’t it?” Chuck babbled on, and slanting a look in Jackson’s direction, he took another step back. “You want the horse? Take him. He eats his weight in food every three days, it seems, so you may want to invest in a good -”

“This would be a good time to be quiet, boy,” Black Bear interrupted, brushing at an invisible spot on his wool vest. Instead of looking at the nickering beast, he gave a snap of his finger like a warning bell in the direction of Chuck’s boots. “Did I say anything about moving, laddie?”

Crap. Usually he was a little more inconspicuous, even with these big clumsy feet.

“I – I don’t keep money on hand ... because I really don’t have any,” Chuck said, still praying to himself that this encounter could be settled with goods rather than the skin of his hide. “But ... there’s whiskey on the shelf behind the stove, if that’s what you’re after.”

“What is your name, boy?” the stranger asked in a measured tone, moseying in within an arm’s length of him.

“Um, Bartowski,” Chuck lied, taking a moment to fully appreciate how menacing the strange man could be. The hard-felt bowler cap perched on The Bear’s head made him appear at least several inches taller than he already was, topping him out in the range of six and a half feet tall. Even the kid had to crane his neck some, and that never happened.

“Bartowski,” the interloper echoed, and putting a hand on the post, he blocked the one opening Chuck had. The kid found himself staring into a pair of eyes black as a cave, barely any delineation between the iris and the pupil. They gleamed intently at him as the man went on, “Before you open your mouth again, I have to strongly recommend not trying to evade the question. I have no use for games.”

The words spiked like porcupine quills against the nerves in his stomach. Without a doubt, Big Bear would hurt him in order to get an answer.

That was a problem. Lying wasn’t his specialty, but Chuck couldn’t tell him what he wanted to know.

He took another look at Rotted and Scarred. It gave him a split second to boldly think of his options. Okay, the first one. He could to lie to the cool-headed bear man, though he was certain that would lead to getting his ass kicked.

Then there was the sudden cyclone option, where the guns would be sucked out of their hands, giving him an opening to run to the Bouldry’s farm, his girlish shrieks of terror echoing off the canyon walls ....

Right.

The kid took a deep breath, fixed his eyes on the black-eyed man, and said, “Go to hell.”

“Hm. That’s too bad,” the man answered.

It never registered. It was too fast, leaving no reaction time, not a spare millisecond to get out of the path of it. The back of his hand hit with bruising impact, their flesh meeting with the smack of the blow. The man then drew back his arm and hit him in the pit of his gut.

“Oof.” Chuck made no noise after that. The air in his lungs had left him. Holy shit, that hurt. He sunk into the straw, straight to his knees and doubled over, blinking away the pinpoints of light. The only sound was the ringing between his ears, magnified by the burst of pain through his jaw, searing his cheek.

Not much of a choice that was, he thought, fighting off a dazed fog.

The kid rattled his head back and forth, eyes watering from the clout, and took hold of one of the rails. No matter what, he was not going to fall over in front of these assholes.

“Get to your feet, boy,” the strange man said, sounding bored. “I need to tell you something, and for that, you have to be looking at me. Not on the ground. So get up.”

“You had something to do with that, you know.” Chuck groped feebly for the middle rail, hoping he could stand without swaying. It wouldn’t be an easy feat, because the vibration had the ground quivering under him. Oh, but good news. He was beginning to be able to see again, now that the spots of light moved to the outer edge of his vision. He knew this because he could make out a pair of large black boots in the straw next to his knees.

“I know you can hear me, boyo.” The voice was cool and calm, as if offering him a glass of water. “I trust you don’t need to be convinced I will do that again if I have to.”

“I trust you can see that you stepped in chicken crap,” Chuck said, and closed his eyes. On the bright side, his jaw was still in working order.

“Sure we can’t shoot ‘im?” one of the others asked.

Bear waved the man off. “Up,” he ordered.

Why not just take him? Why the slugs to the gut? Chuck managed to rise, and of course the first thing he had to see was Rotted Teeth grinning at him. The look alone made the kid want to punch him in that ugly, preening mug. But as it was, his head was still spinning, and he was fairly certain that was his blood he tasted, pooling in his cheek.

“It’s your choice, laddie, when we stop. Not mine.”

“Not much of a choice, is it?” the kid said, massaging his jaw.

“Mm. True.” Big Bear reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette case. It was embellished with the Union Jack. The kid wanted to remember that detail, right there, because it would be significant if the sheriff was to find this giant jerk. If he lived to tell someone. “Cigarette?” the man who had hit him asked.

“Don’t you know they make your breath stink?”

“Not a problem ... where you’re going,” the stranger said. Tapping the case in his palm, a thin rolled cigarette slid out along with a parlor match. He didn’t light it, just toyed with it in his fingers. “Let’s try it this way. I’ll tell you what I think, and you just have to agree with me.”

Chuck pulled himself up to his full height and wiped some blood from his lip. “I thought you didn’t like games,” the kid said.

Hearing that, Rotted Teeth and Scar Nose exchanged alarmed glances. “What did that little Molly say, Liam?” one of them asked. “You gonna let him get away with that?”

“That will do, gentlemen.” The man they called Liam paused, and a cynical smile twisted his lips. He spent a long minute surveying the kid with a look that took in every detail of his face, then from head to toe. “Aye, you could be him.”

Him? Me? Whoever he wanted, the kid only knew that being the focus of those black eyes made him want to squirm and back away. “Oh, I doubt very much I could be him. I’ve got a very common face. I’m sure you’re thinking I look like Thomas Edison? Except without the side part? Or Thoreau? When he was alive – because now it would just be, well, creepy –”

“You’re ... nervous, aren’t you? Makes you chatter, boy?”

“And while we’re at it, thanks for the helping hand to get up,” he said, doing everything to keep his smart mouth in check. “What did you want to tell me?”

Liam kept his eyes tranquilly watching him as he slid the cigarette case back into his pocket. “That I believe your name is Chuck. Or Charles, if we must be formal,” he said. “Is that what they call you, pup?”

Hearing his own name from the stranger’s lips sent a line of sweat down his ribcage. To kill a few seconds while his brain skittered around possibilities, Chuck bent at his waist and put his hands on his knees, staring at the ground. He braced himself, preoccupied with his growing dread, yet understanding that it could be a matter of life or death to keep his face expressionless. That was something Casey was miles better at than he.

“If you thought you already knew my name, why did you have to ask? We could’ve skipped the slugging portion of the conversation and moved right to me telling you that you’re wrong.”

“Tsk, tsk, the little rabbit has balls,” Liam cooed. “He needs a reminder.”

“Reminder – no –” Not thinking, Chuck lifted his fist, although he had never thrown a true punch in his life. Maybe it was a reflex to protect his face from another wallop of that mammoth fist. He wasn’t sure, he just knew that he had to.

It hardly mattered. The moment he clenched, a row of knuckles like an iron bar slammed into him, his cheek taking the full brunt of the blow.

The ground came up to slam him in the face. He was so stunned by the shock of getting hit twice hard that he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t call out. Not that there was anyone to hear him.

The kid staggered and came to his knees, and then fell on all fours as the barn swam in his field of vision. Through the haze of pain, he was dimly aware of the black boots shifting in the straw, stepping on one of his outstretched fingers.

The kid bit his tongue to keep from yelling.

“Up, boy,” the giant said.

“Liam,” he heard Rotted Teeth say, “let’s take the little Mary and get the hell out of here. We don’t know who may drop in for a visit. We can always torture it out of the twit when we get to ridge. In private.”

“If he’s not the one,” Scar Nose added, “there are plenty of places along the way to hide the body.”

The body. His body. These men spoke of a living breathing kicking human like disposing scraps of chicken bones.

“Chuck, I asked you nicely to get up,” Liam said, and from the icy calm of his voice, the kid couldn’t tell if he was considering the suggestion. Especially the one that involved leaving his body as dessert for the turkey buzzards. “You haven’t answered my question.”

“Then ... if you want me to stand,” he said, feeling more droplets of cold sweat under his collar, “you need to stop doing that.”

Liam got down on his haunches, the cigarette still dangling from a few fingers. Almost level with Chuck’s eyes, he patiently watched him, one elbow braced on his knee. “You did hear what my partners suggested, I gather,” he murmured close to Chuck’s ear, and he had to hold back from telling him his breath did smell like coal. “It would only take my word for that to happen, laddie. So though I admire your ... spunkiness, you need to stand up and tell me what I want to know.”

Chuck lifted his eyes and spit on the straw near his boot. “I’m not answering your question. If you’re going to kill me, just get it over with.”

Liam chuckled. “No? I have to tell you, kid, the answer was already in your face. You’ve got enough fear in those ... deep brown eyes to tell me everything I needed to know.”

“I didn’t tell you anything,” Chuck gritted, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. When he pulled it back, he could see a glob of deep crimson and spit smeared across his fingers. “So you can take your charming partners and just go.”

The man rose, laughing softly as he lit the cigarette. “I like him,” he said to the other two without taking his gaze from the kid. “He doesn’t look like the kind that has guts, but he does. The only problem is he has a bit of a mouth on him, too.”

The minute Chuck started to climb to his feet on his own, a savage grip seized his shirt and dragged him through the doorway. Given that they were deciding whether to kill him or not, he figured he should keep his mouth in check about that, but he was getting a little sick of being tossed around like a flour sack.

“You knocked me down, and now you want me back up?” Chuck said, taking great pleasure in stumbling and causing Liam to stumble as well. “Make up your mind, will you?”

The impatience on Liam’s face gave way to a little shut up shake. The kid heard his shirt tearing. “Where the fuck is Rudy?” the Bear asked over his shoulder, keeping one hand clenched on Chuck’s collar. “What’s taking him so long?”

“Ow!” Chuck cringed and began trying to worm out of his grip. It bothered him that the handhold included a fair amount of skin. “Hey, watch it. That’s my –”

“Still in the house,” Rotted Teeth cut in.

“In – in my house?” His first reaction was panic. The second was the sense of being violated. “You can’t just –”

“What about his foot? Can I shoot his foot?”

It was stupid to even think it, but he hawked a wad of spit that landed awfully close to Scar’s boot. He left it at that, since it was fifty/fifty that spitting on Liam would lead to certain death.

“There ... there are a few things you should know about my house. It’s cramped, tiny really, and ... I have a dog! Big dog.” Why did he have to be a cat person! “Nor cheerful, really. It doesn’t have the ambiance, that little je ne sais quoi that you fine fellows -”

“I’m losing patience,” Liam said, tightening his fingers on his collar until Chuck felt his throat constrict. “The first two shots were ... gentle. The next one won’t be as kind, eh, boyo.”

“Ow – easy with the – I’m having a little bit of a hard time breathing here, so if you –”

“I’m beginning to hope you aren’t him,” the Irish man said under his breath.

“Rudy’s coming,” Rotted Teeth said. “He’s got something, too.”

Rudy? There was another one, so that made four. Four against one. As if that mattered! He couldn’t take even one of them down. Not without a gun, but more importantly, he wasn’t sure he had the willingness to use a weapon, even as he tasted his own blood in his mouth from being knocked in the jaw.

“I have ... friends!” Why didn’t he think of that before? “I have people who are going to be here – supposed to be here by now.” To struggle was plainly fruitless, but he kicked out with a boot as hard as he could anyway, purely to vent some of his growing dread. “Let go!”

“Sure you do, boy,” Liam said, giving him a hard shove in the direction of the barn door. He jerked him along, ignoring the twisting and fighting until the newest man appeared at the entryway. “What did you find, Rudy?”

Chuck looked at the man’s hand and felt weak in the knees again. He wanted to kick and yell and swing out at him, and maybe now he would be able to use a gun if he had one.

Ellie’s box, the box with the silver wings. The letters to Ellie he never sent. God, the idiotic letters from Bryce that he never had the guts to throw out. To them it was just metal pieces forming an oblong strongbox he kept on the mantle, and now the lid hung by one delicate silver hinge. The kid felt his guts chill as a few of the letters fell, strewn on the ground.

“This piece of shit box. Silver, not even gold,” the newcomer announced crossly. Rudy held it out for Liam to take a look. “But the letters are interestin’.” The scruffy, bearded man looked up at the kid and smiled. “Aren’t they, Charles?”

He met the man’s eyes, and he knew he didn’t care what happened. It wasn’t paranoia, or coincidence, or his rampant imagination. They knew. They had come for him.

Where he found his bravery, he had no idea. He felt like he was being controlled by a puppet master who had the strings. Before he realized exactly what he was doing, Chuck’s fist took Rudy in the kidney. God, that wasn’t supposed to hurt that much! The kid was new at this, having to fight. He wanted to shake his hand and scream, but he had to get away first.

“Little bastard.” The man staggered, trying to turn, and the kid landed a wild kick to his midsection. Chuck tried not to act surprised when Rudy fell to ground.

“Enough,” he heard Liam say. The hand on his shirtfront clamped down tightly and slung him out of the way. “Only going to hurt more that way, laddie.”

“Stop! Get your hands -!” Chuck tripped when the hold loosened. He let go?

He thanked his lucky stars for that. Or maybe for getting thrown, because in order to toss him, Liam had to let go.

When he felt the deep breaths of freedom, the kid scrambled back to his feet and turned towards the meadow. Desperate and needing to run, his legs tensed, ready to crash through the long grass and briars, carry him away as fast as -

The solid clout across the back of his head knocked him sprawling. His head met the hard-packed earth with a crack, and a lightning bolt of pain crawled over his crown.

As his consciousness drifted like a lazy cloud over a mountain peak, one final thought iced his blood. There was only one man who knew he was here. He had trusted him, trusted enough at least let him know there were secrets he wasn’t going to tell. Trusted him to treat what he found gently. He had opened himself in every way to that man. He had surrendered to him completely, and his reward was the blood matting his hair, more of it filling his mouth.

More pain. Not going away. It welled up in the back of his head, vision getting foggy. Nothing compared to the pain of knowing John Casey had done this to him. Trusting enough was going to get him killed. That just made the betrayal twist his heart to shreds.

He would never trust anyone long enough to feel again.

“I found what I needed,” Liam said, and the kid felt the hard toe of a boot jab into his hip. “Someone’s been looking for you. Isn’t that right, Charles Irving –”

“Never going back –” Chuck said. His answer was a foot that lashed out to his ribcage. Oh, that was a crack. Gonna hurt ....

He blinked at the grass. At the paper taking off with the wind. When one of the letters fluttered open, a symbol appeared, scrawled in black ink at the bottom of a page. His eyes were dull slits, drifting closed, and as he saw the page waving like a bird’s wings, the kid was smacked with a flash of awareness; jumbled letters, numbers, pictures hit him, a stabbing vision of Before and May Well.

After that, all he saw was black, falling wildly into the deep, dark hole.

 

The End

-x-

This would be a good time to let you know that the next part of their journey continues in Sins Fell Angels. You might remember me mentioning this is a trek, and for these boys, every step they take is a step away from the past and a step closer to home. The journey is going to test them, which makes the journey worth taking. We're going to hit the road next, and yes, there will be gunslinging and a bit more badassery.

It's going to take a while to unscrew their mess. ;)

Look for Sins Fell Angels to be posted soon.

Thank you so much, dear readers, for taking the trip with us.


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